Pakistan, with a population of 217M and consumer spending of $257B, is emerging in the global radar & attracting tens of millions of dollars in venture capitals of startups a year. Almost near to what Silicon Valley startup raises in their series B. The change is constant and for the better for Pakistan.

Dec 5, 2019, at PM House in Islamabad, Prime Minister Imran Khan formally announced and inaugurated the Digital Pakistan campaign. The government announces ‘Digital Pakistan’ initiative to digitally transform the country.

In 2020, Pakistan is predicted to become the largest influx of startup for investors with the initiation of Digital Pakistan. Tech start-ups are predicted to bring a revolution in Pakistan with the startup venture capital investment potential of $12M globally.

Scroll down to the following established & early-age 7 start-ups that are changing the way Pakistanis Live.

Patari

Pakistan folks are music lovers, an understatement because Pakistan’s love for music dates back to 700 years ago, so, autocorrect: music crazies. With the rise of sacred Sufi’s to contemporary music played by Pakistani aspiring-to-emergent artists, the music maestros reflect the traditional pieces with Western pop-rock & hip-hop melodies.

However, in spite of Pakistani modern artists’ popularity and vibrancy, there was no platform to search broadcast music except the availability of songs in poor quality media until much-needed portal: Patari.

Patari is the most social-media-savvy music streaming website in Pakistan, founded in 2015 by Khalid Bajwa, Faisal Sherjan, Iqbal Talaat Bhatti and Humayun Haroon. Patari today is a vanguard of promoting undiscovered artists & reminiscing to the tunes of Pakistan’s Old Gold songs, with estimate traffic of about 1,326 unique visitors and 1,989 pageviews on a daily basis.

The press release statement by Patari, “Three months after being launched as a young Pakistani startup, we are proud to announce our first-ever artists’ payout: a total of Rs. One Million, Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand (Rs. 1,250,000) for the entire roster of artists currently available on the Patari platform,”.

Patari regularly featuring tracks by the best musical talent that Pakistan has to offer and offers 40% of its generated revenue to artists as royalties. Listen to songs of Shamim Era to the latest hits of Ali Zafar in one go!

Airlift

Pakistan ranks the sixth most populated country in the world. In the 2017 census, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics estimated the population to be approximately 200.7 million. Pakistan’s population has increased by 44% from the last census of 1998.

Considering the law & order situation deterioration plus employment ratio decreasing in the rural areas, there is a drastic influx of people moving to urban areas such as Karachi & Lahore to make ends meet for their family. The sharp increase in the population requires abrupt facilitation of infrastructure & transportation.

Here comes Airlift: a Pakistan-based decentralized mass transit startup, founded in 2019 by the co-founder & CEO Usman Gul. It is building Pakistan’s largest public transportation network with over 50,000 rides/month and raised seed financing of over Rs. 1.2 M with Fatima Gobi Ventures, through their Techxila Fund I vehicle co-led the round with Indus Valley Capital.

Airlift has capitalized on the enormous latent demand in the market, in less than five months. The round which is the largest Series A ever raised by a Pakistani startup also marks one of the largest financings in South Asia this year and the first time that a US-based VC has led around in Pakistan.

The Honorable Provincial Minister for Transport Syed Awais Qadir Shah has offered his full support to the venture. “With the transport sector in a complete deplorable state and the unfavorable economic condition of the country, companies like Airlift have aroused hope in the population of Pakistan to travel safely whenever and wherever they want to.”

Airlift made passengers’ life easy in a city like Karachi. It connects passengers with bus owners and permits them to commute. Select your pick up and drop off destination on your own from the travel course without tolerating the hue and cry of city life. In the scorching heat of summer days, the air-conditioned bus service makes the journey more pleasant & tolerable.

Instakin

Overseas Pakistanis face a variety of difficulties & challenges which become severe because of the negligence of authorities concerned. There are thousands of cases where property grabbers, documents fraud agents loot the hard-earned money of overseas Pakistanis without a proper background check. Here comes: Instakin: Your Trusted Kin.

Instakin is a global task management platform working as a savior for local & overseas Pakistani. It is founded by Yasir Shirazi in Boston in 2019. Parhlo, HDStrategy, Social CXN and now Instakin are some of their successful business ventures. Instakin flaunts the “Mass Challenge 2019 Finalists” badge with honor and pride.

Instakin provides the top four services: education counseling for higher education to the USA, UK, Canada. and Australia, immigration assistance for people aiming to immigrate to the US, UK, Canada, Australia, document attestation services for educational, immigration and employment purposes such as HEC, IBCC, MOFA, & more. Finally, Property Advisory all over Pakistan.

They have established a resilient portfolio of successful cases of immigration & document attestation services in less than a year. Instakin.com’s Educational Counselling service is a full suite of services for aspirants planning their higher education abroad in the USA, Canada, UK & Australia.

The Property Advisory legal team assist in procuring & managing your property portfolio with effective investment strategies.

Living beyond oceans is emotionally & mentally burdening, it gives you nothing except for stress and anxiety. Instakin is your only Kin!

Foodpanda

Who would blame Pakistani Foodies when the Pakistani food itself is rich, packed full of spice, generous with ghee, and unbelievably tasty? The late-night cravings for oozing, thick, so full of ultra-tender meat chunks literally floating in desi ghee & no one to run errands to fetch it for you? Here we have Foodpanda, an online food delivery service.

Let’s take a trip down a memory lane in history: The food delivery system dates back to the time when even Ireland was the part of Great Britain 1922. January 1994, Pizzanet.com launched its very first online service while accepting their very first online order of a Pepperoni Pizza in North Carolina, USA. Hence, the trend of ordering and delivering food online took its first pace and now stands steady with whooping $13.7 Billion markets.

“Foodpanda celebrates Biryani Day on the last Friday of July — and it’s about time!”

Take the time portal back to present Pakistan: Foodpanda has transformed the way food reaches in Pakistani homes today. It was founded in 2011 by Nauman Sikandar Mirza. Since then, Foodpanda has also digitized the food landscape in Pakistan for ease and convenience of food lovers in the country. With over 160 curated restaurants available, food lovers can order food from international restaurant chains and also have a taste of local cuisine available in the city. Enjoy your Meal!

Bykea

Smartphones and two-wheelers are the two most expensive assets owned by the majority of the people in countries such as Pakistan. The road congestion stops our thought of going out mid-air most of the time. The ultimate solution for Pakistan roads: Bykea.

Pakistan’s startup ecosystem is bustling with instant transport and courier services of Bykea, a Karachi-based ride-hailing, parcel delivery and logistics startup company founded in 2016 by Muneeb Maayr — also delivers food. Bykea is keen-focused on hyper-charging its growth while setting a benchmark for the local startups.

Bykea has raised $5.7 million in Series A investment — the first round of financing after seed money with over two million downloads on its app while the one for partners has 200,000 bicycles & motorbike owners across major cities of Pakistan.

According to CEO Maayr “We wanted to take the existing technology and make it relevant to a major portion of our population. We wanted to convert the existing possessions of people i.e. motorbikes and smartphones into income-generating assets and we wanted to solve transport problems in the three major cities of Pakistan — Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi/Islamabad.”

Bykea brings technology to leverage these assets for optimal utility, to bring a source of income to a family. With the passage of three years, Bykea has more than 500,000 bikes registered on its platform.

Bykea is on its journey of building affordable technology solutions that will create income-generating opportunities for tens of thousands in Pakistan while addressing widespread challenges in transportation, logistics, and payments with pride. They are on a mission to help bring economic prosperity and the most efficient transport and logistics to emerging economies.

Daraz.pk

Online shopping, more than anything is about comfort, ease, money, time savings, and security. A shopaholic couldn’t ask for more than easy access to all the shopping e-outlets with a touch away. In recent decade or so, online shopping trend has emerged with a boom in Pakistan.

For Pakistani people, the term most trusted online fashion retailers is a synonym word for Daraz.pk founded in 2012 by Muneeb Maayr & Farees Shah. It has bustled the Pakistani web with a paradigm shift empowering tens of thousands of sellers to connect with millions of customers. The platform is brimming with 100+ categories with the delivery rate of more than 2M packages.

CEO Dr. Jonathan Doerr, stated, “Over the last few years, we have pioneered e-commerce to accelerate the digital transformation in Pakistan. We are thrilled to see the impressive results achieved to date and will continue to be the driving force that is constantly innovating for merchants and customers in the coming decades. With 11.11, we introduce a new era of shopping, taking brands and consumers to the next level.”

In 2019, Daraz scored Pakistan’s first 3 billion rupee sale in revenue, securing 4 times more orders compared to 2018’s sale, powered by 3 times more traffic on the e-commerce portal, daraz.pk

Daraz.pk is achieving milestones over the past year with a mission to make it easy to do business anywhere in the era of the digital economy. It is a major contributor in the Pakistan economy, providing a growing online marketplace for sellers & buyers sellers.

PakWheels.com

Buy or sell cars, seek out suggestions or be part of a community of car enthusiasts with a 360 solution: PakWheels. It was founded in 2003 by Hanif Bhatti and Suneel Munj with over 250,000 registered members on its online forum. It is a pioneer venture in the “Sell/Buy Car” niche of Pakistan holding the title of #1 automotive portal. The platform has assisted millions of Pakistanis to buy & sell automobiles, read automotive reviews and news, check automotive prices and find solutions to all of their automotive needs.

PakWheels takes over and sell your car at a fee with a money-back guarantee. They check the car, put up an Ad with pictures, make a deal and handle the paperwork for the customer. Moreover, under this service, the Ad will remain at the top of search lists to interest more buyers for you. As of 2019, 50% of Pakistan’s internet population availed the services and it has a gross margin of over 400,000 sold vehicles.

Conclusion

Pakistan’s tech entrepreneur ecosystem is drastically attaining momentum. It’s home to a strong young talent base starting from age 10 with the most promising coming of age technology startup ideas looking for a platform to pitch it away. Pakistan’s startup growth is predictably going to accelerate tenfolds in 2020 into revenue-generating business models with the help of private & governmental initiatives.