The agreements were signed with the Saleh Kamel Sustainable Entrepreneurship & Enterprise Development Organization (SKSEED), Karachi Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KWCCI) Korangi, UK Pakistan Tech Forum, and Commonwealth Entrepreneurs Forum.

The MoUs were signed as part of the 13th edition of the Pakistan Investor Summit, a two-day initiative hosted by NIC Karachi that brought together startups, investors, venture capitalists, business leaders, industry representatives and national and international ecosystem experts to promote investment and strategic collaboration within Pakistan’s startup ecosystem.

The summit provided startups with opportunities to pitch their businesses to investors, receive expert feedback, explore funding prospects and establish relationships with potential investors and strategic partners.

The first day featured pitching sessions involving startups from NIC Karachi’s Cohort 14 and Cohort 15, who presented their business ideas and scalable solutions to a panel of investors. The programme also included one-on-one investor office hours, allowing entrepreneurs to hold more detailed discussions with investors, explore potential deals and receive tailored guidance.

The second day was held at ITCN Asia, where the summit brought together a broader national and international audience of investors, technology leaders, business representatives and ecosystem stakeholders. The programme included an Investor Fireside Chat examining Pakistan’s investment landscape from the perspective of experienced investors and business leaders, followed by a Startup Showcase featuring six startups presenting their business models, growth potential and market opportunities.

Speaking at the summit, NIC Karachi Project Director Syed Azfar Hussain said the initiative reflected the centre’s commitment to developing a connected investment ecosystem.

“The Pakistan Investor Summit reflects our continued commitment to building a strong and connected investment ecosystem in Pakistan. By creating structured opportunities for engagement between startups and investors, we are not only facilitating access to capital but also enabling knowledge exchange, mentorship, and long-term partnerships,” he said.

Hussain added that the quality of startups and investor participation at this year’s summit demonstrated the continued development of Pakistan’s innovation ecosystem.

The summit featured speakers including World Business Angels Investment Forum (WBAF) Chairman Baybars Altuntas, Finserv Experts Managing Director Areiel Wolanow, Dr Wael Eldesouki Bedda of SKSEED, Chief Digital Officer at Tracking Faysal Ghauri and Cisco Pakistan Country Head Kashif Ul Haque.

Their participation brought national and international perspectives to discussions around investment, entrepreneurship, technology, digital transformation and business growth.

The summit concluded with remarks by Secretary IT Gilgit-Baltistan Zameer Abbas, who highlighted the importance of collaboration among government, industry, investors, academia and entrepreneurs in unlocking Pakistan’s technology and innovation potential.

The Pakistan Investor Summit 2026 provided a platform for startups and investors to explore early- and growth-stage investment opportunities, develop strategic partnerships and connect local innovation with national and international investment networks.

Established in 2018 at NED University, Karachi, NIC Karachi is an Ignite-funded incubation centre operated by LMKT and Lucky Landmark Pvt Ltd in partnership with Orbit Ventures.

The centre has incubated more than 440 startups since its inception and says its portfolio has generated more than Rs13 billion in revenues and raised over Rs13 billion in investment. NIC Karachi provides free incubation, mentorship, legal and financial advisory, investor access, and specialised labs covering fintech, industrial automation and media.

What there is far less of is any real accounting for what happens after: for instance, whether the business survives its third year, whether it ever becomes profitable, whether the woman who launched it is still running it five years later, or whether the business quietly folded in on itself once the focus moved on to someone else’s launch.

That gap is exactly what tech entrepreneur and author Mahe Zehra Husain highlights, in response to Business Recorder about her new book, ‘Women Rising: A Practical Guide to Building a Business You Love’. When asked what is missing from Pakistan’s conversation about women’s entrepreneurship, she doesn’t point to a lack of ambition or a shortage of encouragement. Instead, she points to what gets measured: “We need to stop treating starting as the finish line. I would love to see the conversation move from ‘how many women started business?’ to ‘how many women were able to build businesses that actually worked for them?’”

It’s a small reframing with large implications – because almost every visible institutional effort in this space, from the awards ceremonies to the government loan targets, is currently built to answer the first question, not the second.

The Kashf Women Entrepreneurship Award has eight main categories, from a Digital Innovator Award to a Sustainability Champion Award that turns out to reward climate resilience and green practices, not whether the business itself is still standing in five years. Not one of the eight asks whether an entrepreneur’s business survived, turned a profit, or is still running.

The government’s own numbers follow the same pattern. Beneficiaries of the Prime Minister’s Youth Business and Agriculture Loan Scheme surged from 71,000 to more than 271,000 over the past two years, according to Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme – with women accounting for 11% of beneficiaries as of February, against a stated target of 25%.

By August, a parliamentary reply from Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb updated that figure directly: more than 104,000 young women had received Rs. 29 billion in financing under the scheme. These are real numbers, and obviously they matter. But every one of them measures the same thing – how many women received financing, and how much – not what happened to their business afterwards.

Husain’s critique extends further than measurement, though. When asked who gets left out of the entrepreneurship conversation entirely, she doesn’t point to a specific data gap. Instead, she chooses to highlight the constricted idea of who counts as an entrepreneur in the first place. “We talk a lot about founders who can take a risk, leave a job, work from a café, invest their savings, or spend six months figuring things out,” she says. “But there are women who are supporting entire families, caring for children or aged parents… their entrepreneurship may begin with what is available to them rather than what they dream of building.”

A woman building a small, stable business that gives her more control over time, she argues, is not somehow less entrepreneurial than one chasing venture capital and exponential growth – but a culture obsessed with launches and rapid growth has little room to recognise the first kind of success at all.

It would be easy to read Husain’s critique as a case for individual mindset shifts solving what are, in reality, structural problems – and she does in fact head that off herself. When asked directly where a workbook’s advice runs up against real barriers, she doesn’t oversell what the book can do. “I would never suggest that a workbook can solve structural inequality,” she says.

“Access to capital, legal infrastructure, mobility, childcare, technology, family expectations, and social networks can profoundly determine who gets to become an entrepreneur and who gets to sustain one.” What she argues Women Rising can do is narrower: help women “understand their business model, articulate what they are building, identify their resources and gaps” – working, as she puts it, “at the level where many entrepreneurs do have agency.”

The distinction she draws matters, because it cuts against a temptation the entrepreneurship-encouragement industry rarely resists: turning systemic failure into personal failure. “Sometimes the answer isn’t ‘work harder’ or ‘align more deeply with your values,’” Husain says. “Sometimes the answer is access to financing, a lawyer, a mentor, a network, childcare, or a policy change.”

If Kashf’s award categories and the government’s loan-disbursement targets represent one kind of institutional response, expanding access, however unevenly, a book like Husain’s represents a more nuanced, individual-level intervention that was never designed to replace them. The question her framing leaves open is whether anyone is doing the harder work of tracking whether either intervention, alone or together, actually produces business that lasts.

So what would it actually take to answer the question Husain says Pakistan isn’t asking? Her own list is unglamorous by design. “Sustainability requires financial literacy, pricing properly, understanding customers, creating repeatable systems, managing cash flow, negotiating, hiring, delegating, and knowing when to change direction,” she says. None of that photographs well. There’s no ceremony for correctly pricing a product, no award category for a founder who quietly fixed her cash-flow problem in year three instead of scaling into a bigger one.

“It also requires an ecosystem that doesn’t disappear after the launch photographs and the first round of applause,” she adds – a line that undoubtedly lands a little differently given that this piece itself began with a launch, at a bookstore, with a press release and photographs of its own.

That’s not a reason to dismiss launches, or the awards, or the loan schemes – visibility and access still matter, and Husain is no way arguing otherwise. But her sharper point is about what happens to the story once the cameras leave: “a beautiful Instagram presence and a lot of visibility don’t necessarily mean you have a healthy business.” Pakistan’s entrepreneurship conversation, as it currently stands, has very little machinery for finding out which is which.

Husain’s own trajectory offers a quiet answer to that question, even if it isn’t packaged as one. I asked whether her definition of success had changed since she started, and in response, she doesn’t reach for a particular milestone.

“When I was younger, success was much more externally measurable – achievements, titles, recognition, the size of the company, the number of books, the next milestone,” she says. “Over time, I became much more interested in the quality of the life surrounding those achievements.” Women Rising, she’s careful to add, isn’t a formula she arrived at and is now handing down. “It is really the result of years of questioning, building, making mistakes, and changing my mind… I don’t want to hand women a formula for success. I want to give them the tools to define it for themselves.”

That’s a harder thing to measure than a disbursement figure or an award category, which may be exactly the point. Pakistan’s institutions have gotten efficient at counting how many women start – the loans disbursed, the businesses launched, the ceremonies held. What Husain is asking for is a second number nobody is currently tracking: how many of those businesses, five or ten years on, are still standing, still profitable, and still run by the women who believed in them enough to begin. Until someone starts counting that, the applause at the launch will keep outpacing the evidence of what came after.

The round saw participation from Noon Investment, Sohar International Bank and M20 Fund, Farooq said, adding that it gives the company “fresh momentum for the next phase of growth in Saudi Arabia and beyond.”

According to Farooq, barq has processed more than SAR 440 billion (roughly $117 billion) for over 15 million users across more than 210 nationalities within two years of operation.

Farooq, who leads the company’s Pakistan operations, called the milestone personal, saying barq PK is not “watching this journey from the sidelines” but operating as part of “one barq, one Group” working toward a shared goal.

He credited barq’s leadership, including Ahmed Alenazi, for building the platform “at extraordinary speed,” and linked the company’s growth to momentum in Saudi Arabia’s fintech sector under the kingdom’s Vision 2030 programme.

The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at Saudi Arabia’s flagship technology and innovation event, outlining a strategic partnership focused on technology, education and workforce development.

The signing ceremony was attended by Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Shaza Khawaja.

According to Edversity, the partnership will provide the startup with access to capital, engineering capabilities, operational expertise and international networks to support its next phase of growth.

Through BridgeStart Pakistan, Edversity has also received support for its expansion into Saudi Arabia, including participation in The Garage acceleration programme. The initiative helped the startup gain access to Saudi Arabia’s technology ecosystem, market opportunities, business networks and potential pathways for scaling.

Founded in Pakistan in 2021 and supported by Ignite under the Ministry of IT and Telecom, Edversity has trained more than 12,500 learners in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud computing, data, blockchain and other emerging technologies.

The startup said its placement outcomes had exceeded 70% across selected cohorts.

Rapidev said the strategic investment would support Edversity’s international expansion and the continued development of its AI-powered education platform.

“This MoU marks an important step towards strengthening collaboration, fostering innovation and creating new opportunities for the future,” Rapidev said in a LinkedIn post.

Edversity said the partnership reflected growing confidence in Pakistan’s technology and education ecosystem and demonstrated the potential of Pakistani startups to develop solutions for international markets.

The startup’s team participated in LEAP 2026, engaging in discussions on the future of AI education and workforce development while exhibiting alongside Rapics and Owlsense as part of the Rapidev Group of Companies.

Held in Riyadh from August 31 to September 3, LEAP 2026 brought together technology leaders, startups, investors, policymakers and innovators from around the world.

Rapidev Group develops and produces intelligent software and safe hardware.

BusCaro reached the milestone in less than four years of operations and with a reported lifetime burn of $1.4 million, Founder and CEO Maha Shahzad said while speaking with Zag Daily.

BusCaro’s annual revenue increased from $4.5 million to $6.5 million in its fourth year of operations, while annual recurring revenue reached $7.1 million, she further added.

The figures, Shahzad highlighted, come against a backdrop of a tougher global macroeconomic climate defined by tightening global funding, political conflict and inflation.

BusCaro, started in 2022, offers shared commute services.

More than 30 million bookings have been made under BusCaro to date – 10 million more than was reported less than a year ago.

“The biggest driver has been the team behind it and their belief in what they’re building. They’ve kept going even when it looked very unlikely we’d make it over the line,” Shahzad said.

“This relentless focus on the customer and operational excellence is why our customers stay. Several of our customers have been with us since day one and across all bookings we have maintained 99.5% reliability. Simply put, our customers have no reason to leave.”

Metal founder and CEO Usman Gul, also a founder of Airlift, announced the news via a social media post.

Metal operates as an AI operating system designed to assist founders with their fundraising and venture capital workflows.

The AI platform provides deep intelligence and automation to assist startups’ funding rounds.

Meanwhile, in his post, Gul said that the funding round also saw participation from Pioneer Fund, Rebel Fund, Gaingels, Indus Valley Capital, Team Ignite Ventures and Phaze Ventures, among others.

According to Gul, Metal is tracking to close FY2026 with multi-million-dollar annual revenue, having recorded six consecutive quarters of 30-80% quarter-on-quarter growth.

“Today marks an important step in our broader ambition: turning software that founders initially adopt while raising capital into infrastructure they continue using throughout the capital formation process.”

The company also announced the publication of its thesis on the evolution of private capital markets, outlining how it expects the sector to develop in the coming years.

Earlier in June, Metal secured strategic investment from Rebel Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in high-performing startups from the Y Combinator ecosystem.

Speaking at the Fintech Roundtable 2026 held at the Sindh Governor House, she said the government was working to increase funding available to startups under the PSF to $25–50 million over the next few years by bringing global financial institutions, including the World Bank, IFC and the Asian Development Bank, on board.

She said the government had 100% digitalised G2G [government-to-government] payments among the federal ministries and departments. “So, there is a large movement towards the whole economy going cashless,” she said.

The minister said the government was targeting to increase size of the formal economy through digitalisation. “If we formalise 25% of the informal economy, that’s about $100 billion added to Pakistan’s national GDP, which is a huge number,” she said.

Elaborating the agenda of her visit to Karachi on Friday, the federal minister said, “We are here with the whole team in Karachi is because we met with the Governor State Bank and Chief Minister earlier in the day to move digitisation forward as a whole and as a nation”.

She said access to capital had remained a major challenge in recent years, particularly after the global funding slowdown in 2021, which severely constrained financing for Pakistani startups.

“But, we are starting a Pakistan Startup Fund. The phase one deployment has already started. In Pakistan Startup Fund 2.0, we’ve set a $10 million fund.

“We have almost finalised our conversation with the World Bank. IFC is pitching in. We’re also talking to ADB.”

The minister further said the idea was to anchor a larger fund, make it a first-class guarantee for international investors, hand it over to an international fund manager through an RFP (Request for Proposal) process.

“So, we’re in quite some advanced stages to make sure that at least anywhere between a $25 million to $50 million fund is available for the startup ecosystem for the next few years.”

Pakistan’s formal economy stands at $400 billion at present, according to Shaza Fatima Khawaja.

“Conservative numbers show that almost 50% of the economy is informal, which means that there might be another $400 billion in the economy which is not documented. As we digitise the economy, without any additional revenue measures, enforcement, taxation, our economy will be formalised. If we formalise 25% of the informal economy, that’s about $100 billion added to Pakistan’s national GDP, which is a huge number.”

Giving a talk on digitalising Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) payments, she said around 825,000 women had created digital wallets.

“We distributed 10 million free SIMs and opened digital wallets. So, today, the transactions have gone into trillions [of rupees via digital channels], when we talk about only the BISP beneficiaries.

“So, not only did they receive the payments, but they started doing their utility payments, their rents, their children’s expenses, and other transactions [digitally]. They started using those wallets properly,” she said.

Through the partnership, NOX Group employees will be able to access a portion of their earned salary in real time before their regular payday, giving them greater control over their cash flow and more flexibility in managing their financial needs, read a statement on Thursday.

Speaking on the partnership, Omair Ansari, Co-Founder and CEO of ABHI, said:

“Financial wellbeing starts with having greater control over the income you have already earned. At Abhi, we believe employees should have the flexibility to access their earned wages when they need them, rather than being restricted by a fixed payday. Our partnership with NOX Group reflects a shared commitment to creating a more supportive employee experience, where financial flexibility is an integral part of the workplace.”

As Saudi Arabia continues to advance the objectives of Vision 2030, employers are increasingly looking beyond traditional compensation to create more holistic employee experiences. Therefore, financial wellbeing is becoming an important part of this shift, with employers exploring technology-enabled solutions that can provide employees with greater financial flexibility and support, the statement added.

ABHI is a financial technology company building the infrastructure for greater financial access across emerging markets. Its solutions include earned wage access, payroll processing, payroll financing, and SME Financing, helping businesses and their employees access greater financial flexibility.

Founded in 2021 by Omair Ansari and Ali Ladhubhai, ABHI has expanded its operations across Pakistan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman, partnering with more than 7,000 businesses and serving over 1 million users across the region.

In August, ABHI Bank announced its intention to list on the Pakistan Stock Exchange and raise approximately Rs2–3 billion through an Initial Public Offering (IPO), following its acquisition and turnaround of a “broken bank” eighteen months prior (around February 2025).

The proposed law aims to increase access to risk capital, attract domestic and foreign investment, support startup growth, create jobs and contribute to economic growth.

“The bill has been prepared under a federal government initiative that tasked SECP to develop a bespoke, standalone regulatory framework for venture capital and improve funding access for startups and high-growth businesses.

“Despite strong potential, Pakistan’s startup, technology and innovation sectors have limited access to formal venture capital, with much of the investment activity structured offshore or outside the domestic regulatory framework,” the SECP said.

The Commission further said the proposed bill sought to address that gap through “a simple and transparent framework” for venture capital funds and fund managers.

“It provides for light-touch licensing and registration, simplified operational structures, and clear governance and reporting standards, while facilitating the formalisation of venture capital activity in Pakistan.”

SECP chariman Dr Kabir Ahmed Sidhu said the proposed law would help channel private capital into Pakistan’s emerging businesses.

“The bill recognises the high-risk and innovation-driven nature of venture capital and seeks to reduce regulatory barriers while ensuring effective governance and investor protection,” he was quoted as saying in the SECP statement.

As the next step, SECP and BoI will hold public consultations with key stakeholders, including startups, fund managers, legal and financial experts, the State Bank of Pakistan, Pakistan Stock Exchange and relevant industry associations, before the draft proceeds through the legislative process.

The financing was led by SBI Group and follows Fasset’s $51 million Series B earlier this year, which brought Speedinvest onto the cap table alongside a group of strategic investors, read the statement.

The new funds will support the fintech expansion of Own Network, Fasset’s regulated financial network that connects banks, telcos, payment and liquidity providers to enable settlement across international markets, the fintech said.

It will also increase investment in agentic AI-enabled systems supporting corridor banking, stablecoin settlement and tokenised asset infrastructure.

In May 2026, Fasset closed a $51 million Series B funding round. After raising Series B, Fasset has now raised a total of $119 million in 2026. The financing also marks Fasset’s entry into the global fintech unicorn category.

Founded in 2019 by Mohammad Raafi Hossain and Daniel Ahmed, Fasset has raised more than $150 million in funding, serves customers across more than 125 countries and operates through regulated entities and partnerships across the GCC, Asia, Europe and other international markets.

“Fasset’s vision of a world in which money moves across borders as easily as information does points in the same direction as the on-chain economic zone that the SBI Group seeks to realise through digital finance,” said Yoshitaka Kitao, Representative Director, Chairman, President & CEO, SBI Holdings, Inc.

“Together with Fasset, we will advance the development of the next generation of on-chain financial systems, extending from the Asia-Pacific region to the Middle East and Africa,” he said.

The investment expands Fasset’s relationship with SBI Group, one of Japan’s leading comprehensive financial groups, spanning banking, securities, asset management, and private equity, with investments in companies including Ripple, Circle, and Morpho, and in group companies including B2C2.

“The next phase is about any-to-any banking. Any person to any person. Any asset to any asset. Any rail to any rail, anywhere. We built Fasset to address a simple problem: access to financial opportunity still depends too heavily on where someone lives and the financial system available to them,” said Mohammad Raafi Hossain, Co-Founder and CEO of Fasset.

“Having SBI Group lead this round speeds up our ability to serve the world by having access to the wider SBI financial ecosystem and their partners, including our previously announced partnership with SBI Remit, enabling us to leverage an extensive network that supports bank account remittances to approximately 200 countries,” said Hossain.

“Fasset is building the regulated infrastructure that helps people and businesses in growth markets access stablecoins, global assets and cross-border rails. That access is still too often shaped by geography. Raafi, Daniel and the team are changing that, and we are proud to have continued backing Fasset as it scales globally,” said Stefan Klestil, General Partner at Speedinvest.

What does Fasset do?

Fasset provides financial access that allows customers to receive, hold, move, spend and invest across currencies, markets and asset classes.

Underpinning those products is Own Network, Fasset’s financial infrastructure connecting local banking systems, payment providers, financial institutions, telcos, liquidity providers, custody partners and settlement networks across more than 100 banking corridors.

Stablecoins are used within parts of the network as settlement infrastructure, allowing value to move between markets more efficiently where appropriate. Customers interact with Fasset through financial products and accounts rather than needing to manage the underlying settlement infrastructure themselves.

The company uses AI to improve how transactions are routed across payment rails, currencies, liquidity providers, and settlement methods, based on factors including cost, speed, and availability.

In February 2026, Fasset formed a partnership with Habib Rafiq Limited (HRL), a leading infrastructure and real estate development group in Pakistan.

Under this partnership, Fasset planned to enter the Pakistani market, focusing on tokenising real-world assets—specifically Pakistan’s estimated $1.5 trillion real estate and domestic asset market—to create digital investment pathways.

The startup, which has moved from pre-launch development to a controlled rollout in a span of months, sees gold as the first product in a wider strategy aimed at encouraging Pakistanis to save regularly through digital platforms.

“In the near term, we want to make gold savings mainstream by giving millions of Pakistanis an easy, transparent, and affordable way to own gold,” Adil Saleem, Founder and CEO of Asasa, said in an exclusive talk with Business Recorder.

“Over the longer term, we see Asasa evolving into Pakistan’s super app for savings,” he said.

Asasa allows users to purchase gold through its app starting from Rs1,000, with purchases executed at live market-linked prices and customer holdings backed by physical gold, according to Saleem.

The company previously operated under the name Zariah and had planned to allow users to invest in physical 24-karat gold from Rs500 when Business Recorder interviewed Saleem in October 2025. At the time, the platform was still in the pre-launch stage and was exploring discussions with strategic partners and investors.

Saleem said the rebranding to Asasa, derived from the Urdu word “اثاثہ” meaning asset, reflected the company’s broader ambitions beyond its initial digital gold offering.

“The decision was about building a stronger long-term brand. While Zariah helped us bring our vision for digital gold to life, we wanted a name that better reflected our broader vision,” he shared.

While talking about Asasa’s vision, the founder said, “Gold is just the beginning,” as the startup sees itself evolving into a savings platform that could help people build and preserve their financial future through trusted savings products and real assets.

Zariah: the startup that wants to make it easy to invest in gold from Rs500

Saleem said the startup is currently in a controlled rollout phase. “Rather than pursuing rapid growth from day one, we’re focused on validating our operations, gathering customer feedback, and ensuring every part of the experience works reliably as we scale,” he said.

Users join the app through a phased rollout or unlock early access by referring 10 friends, completing identity verification and then can purchase gold through the platform.

“Our objective is to remove the traditional barriers to owning gold, while giving people confidence that they own real, fully-backed gold,” said Saleem.

Asasa has also increased the minimum investment to Rs1,000 from the Rs500 initially envisaged.

“The decision was based on operational efficiency and customer behaviour,” says Saleem.

“As we tested the product with early users, we found that Rs500 didn’t strike the right balance between accessibility and building a meaningful savings habit. Rs1,000 does,” he said.

The company generates revenue through a “small spread” between its buying and selling prices for gold, which it says covers sourcing, technology, operational and maintenance costs.

For Asasa, the longer-term opportunity lies in using gold to introduce consumers to a broader digital savings ecosystem.

“Our role isn’t to replace jewellers, but to solve a different problem,” said Saleem. “Digital ownership makes it possible to start small, avoid those concerns, and buy and sell gold more conveniently.”

Asasa also plans to eventually offer physical delivery, “giving customers the flexibility to convert their digital holdings into physical gold”.

The startup is betting that greater convenience and smaller entry points can help turn saving into a more regular habit, which can help make “disciplined saving a habit for millions of Pakistanis”, said Saleem.

Epic Angel did not disclose the size of the investment being made in Oraan.

However, in its statement, the investor shared that WaveMaker and i2i Ventures, both returning investors, also joined the round.

According to the press statement, the funds raised in the round will be utilised to grow Oraan’s gold savings product, build out its gold inventory, and support its expansion into new markets.

Founded in 2018 by Halima Iqbal, a former investment banker, Oraan designs products and services around credit, insurance, and savings in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s fintech Oraan raises $3m

It said that in Pakistan, only 2% of women have access to credit.

“At the same time, an estimated 60 million Pakistani women already save and lend through informal savings circles, known locally as committees, moving billions of dollars a year entirely outside the formal financial system,” it said.

Oraan digitises that system. Women pool money each month and take turns receiving the full amount, giving them access to a lump sum without a credit history or a bank relationship.

In November 2025, Oraan added a gold savings product that lets users buy fractional gold with price-locked monthly instalments, and it has grown nearly 75x in its first seven months.

The fintech is also extending its technology beyond Pakistan and has signed a deal to license its savings and credit platform to a bank in the region, bringing its model to millions of customers in a new market.

“Women in Pakistan were never waiting for financial products; they were waiting for the financial system to catch up to how they already save,” said Halima Iqbal, founder and CEO of Oraan.

An interview with the co-founders of Oraan Tech Pvt. Ltd.

“Committees/ROSCAs gave us their trust, gold gave them ownership, and now our technology is travelling to markets far beyond Pakistan. This round lets us do more of all three,” she added.

Maaike Doyer, founding and managing partner at Epic Angels, believes that access to credit for women in Pakistan isn’t really a technology problem; “it’s a trust problem, and Oraan solved it by digitising something millions of women already use and believe in, rather than trying to replace it.”

“We first backed Oraan in 2021, and we’re proud to continue supporting Halima and her team as they bring savings, credit, and now gold to more women, and we look forward to supporting their growth by leveraging our global collective of investors,” said Doyer.

The development came during a meeting between Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Ahsan Iqbal, and Saeed Amidi, Founder and CEO of Plug and Play Tech Centre, to discuss opportunities for strengthening Pakistan’s startup ecosystem and connecting its entrepreneurs with global innovation networks, read an official statement.

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During the meeting, Plug and Play expressed interest in partnering with Pakistan to accelerate up to 300 startups from the country’s leading universities, connect Pakistani entrepreneurs with more than 600 global corporate partners, and help startups achieve product-market fit, raise investment and expand internationally while maintaining their core operations in Pakistan.

The signed LoI lays the foundation for Plug and Play Tech Center to establish operations in Pakistan, with proposed offices in Islamabad and Karachi. The company shared its successful partnership models implemented in Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Germany and several other countries.

Under the proposed collaboration, the LoI is expected to facilitate global acceleration programmes for Pakistani startups while promoting innovation, entrepreneurship and AI-driven growth. It is also expected to create opportunities for investment, mentorship and international market access through Plug and Play’s global network, according to the statement.

“This landmark collaboration reflects the Government’s commitment to empowering young innovators, attracting global technology investment, and positioning Pakistan as a competitive, knowledge-driven and innovation-led economy,” read the statement.

Ahsan highlighted Pakistan’s significant competitive advantage in terms of its young talent pool, cost-effective engineering workforce and the government’s continued investment in digital and IT skills development.

He noted that with the right international partnerships, Pakistan’s rapidly growing startup culture has the potential to emerge as a major regional innovation hub.

The funding round was co-led by i2i Ventures and Oraseya Capital, with participation from Anchorless Bangladesh, Conjunction Capital, F6 Ventures, Hi2 Global, Orbit Startups, and strategic angels, including Salman Butt, co-founder of Salla, and operators from Bolt, Mubadala and EY, read a statement on Wednesday.

Revora was co-founded by Pakistani tech entrepreneur Daniyal Baig and Bangladeshi-born operations expert Shuvo Rahman.

The seed round proceeds are expected to be primarily utilised towards driving growth in Saudi Arabia, which has emerged as Revora’s largest and fastest-growing market, and also into the product.

Revora, which is currently operational in over 21 countries, has seen its revenue grow 10x since it focused on Saudi Arabia and the GCC in late 2024, and the team plans to deepen their presence in the region with this latest funding round.

The company offers a Saudi-based customer engagement and AI operating system for e-commerce, which, via its AI agents, acts as a central hub that helps online businesses boost sales and manage customer support.

“Brands using Revora’s AI-led sales and campaigns see a 15-20% revenue increase, showcasing the tangible value of the product,” says the company.

It also turns every merchant’s product catalogue into clean, structured data, allowing a merchant’s products to be found, recommended and bought.

“AI is changing how people buy, not just how companies sell. We’re building Revora on one bet: that the businesses winning the next decade are the ones an AI can understand, represent, and sell for,” said Shuvo Rahman, co-founder, Revora

“The signal that matters most to us isn’t the funding. It’s that merchants using Revora are generating real revenue from it. That’s the metric we’re obsessed with, and the one we are building for,” added  Daniyal Baig, another co-founder of Revora.

Both Daniyal, who spent over 12 years in the MENA region in leadership roles across media and fintech, most recently as COO of Forbes Middle East and Shuvo, who brings the product and technical depth, are building a company that is emerging-market native and is built to address the unique needs of the region.

“We are thrilled to back the team at Revora,” says Kalsoom Lakhani, Co-founder/General Partner, i2i Ventures.

“They have built a product that cuts through the AI noise with tangible value today and a real scale potential. A product built from emerging markets for the region, and the traction speaks for itself. Exactly the kind of bet we back at i2i Ventures,” she added.

Meanwhile, Rahat Ahmed, General Partner, Anchorless Bangladesh, believes that “Revora is precisely what talent in Bangladesh and Pakistan looks like when backed with conviction”.

“We backed Shuvo and team from the very beginning and are proud to double down as they scale,” he said.

Similarly, Omar Khan, Partner, Oraseya Capital, while highlighting the importance of early AI adoption, also backed Revora in its mission to help merchants succeed “by providing solutions that improve operational and customer outcomes”.

According to a statement, the product, titled as ‘Khudmukhtar Khatoon’, has been developed by Walee Financial Services and will offer fully digital, Shariah-compliant asset financing to women-owned businesses.

Under the scheme, eligible women entrepreneurs will be able to obtain financing ranging from Rs100,000 to Rs1.5 million, subject to credit assessment. The financing facility will be available through the company’s digital lending application, Hakeem, enabling applicants to complete the entire process online.

The approved financing can be used to purchase business-related assets through an integrated marketplace within the platform, with the selected assets delivered directly to borrowers’ registered addresses.

The repayment period will extend up to 12 months through equal monthly installments, allowing women-led enterprises to acquire productive assets while managing cash flows effectively.

The SECP said the initiative represented a significant step toward its broader agenda of promoting financial inclusion and expanding access to formal finance for women entrepreneurs.

Walee Financial Services, a licensed non-banking finance company (NBFC), is currently engaged in investment finance services and provides digital nano-financing through its mobile application.

The approval of the new product enables the company to expand its operations from consumer financing to the MSME segment.

The regulator noted that lending NBFCs were playing an increasingly important role in extending finance to underserved sectors.

“Collectively, these institutions disbursed approximately Rs111 billion in financing to around 7.5 million micro and small businesses during the July-December 2025 period,” it said.

The launch of the women-focused financing product is expected to support entrepreneurship and enhance financial inclusion among women-owned businesses across the country.

“This round accelerates respond.io’s global expansion as the customer conversation management platform for mid-market B2C businesses that generate revenue from customer chats and calls,” the company said in a statement.

In 2017, Hassan Ahmed (CTO), Gerardo Salandra (CEO) and Laroslav Kudritskiy (COO) co-founded Respond.io. After beginning as an AI chatbot startup called Rocketbots in Hong Kong, the company moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and changed its name to Respond.io in 2019 to concentrate on omnichannel customer conversations.

After securing the fresh funding, the AI company said while Series B raises tend to fund operations for SaaS companies, it stands at $35 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) with 169% year-over-year growth as adoption increases steadily.

After building a strong portfolio of customers in APAC, LATAM and EMEA, we’re using this funding to accelerate local acquisitions and build a stronger regional presence for businesses in North America and Europe, it added.

The startup assists companies in handling customer chats on many platforms, including WeChat, Telegram, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Respond.io serves over 10,000 enterprises in over 180 countries, and processes over 2 billion messages every quarter.

Myco Holdings said this investment would further fuel the growth of Pakistan’s video commerce landscape, as Buypass introduces the first ever shopping channel where customers can shop live through TV broadcast.

Myco founder Umair Masoom Usmani said he and Chief Executive Officer at Daman Investments Ahmed Khizer Khan had been backing BuyPass founder Muhammad Ammar Hassan since Day 0 to get BuyPass off the ground.

“Today we are proud to announce further deepening of this relationship whereby Myco Holdings has led the latest funding round for BuyPass,” Usmani said.

As a result of this investment and the underlying synergies, he said, BuyPass will fast track its journey towards making video commerce mainstream in Pakistan.

“Already with a million plus downloads and close to 500k MAUs across mobile for the BuyPass app and over 90% distribution across Pakistan for BuyPass TV, the incoming scale will be notable in the months to come,” he added.

Usmani said the investment also means that Ammar has taken a leadership role across the Myco ecosystem leading both Myco Pakistan and BuyPass teams into the next phase of growth.

“As a builder and investor at the intersection of tech and media / entertainment, myco continues to incubate and build further startups within the space and are firm on our thesis that media tech remains one of the largest opportunities in our region especially in Pakistan,” he stated.

BuyPass offers a wide range of products from verified sellers, with browsing categories, and making purchases with just a few taps. For the first time ever, BuyPass said, it brings quick commerce delivery within 3 hours for same-city orders, bringing top-quality products right to your doorstep.

Myco is one of the fastest-growing OTT streaming platforms in Pakistan with more than 40 million registered users.

Launched from UAE in 2021 by a Pakistani founder, Myco is more than just a video streaming app — it’s a next-generation media-tech platform built at the intersection of content, technology, and financial empowerment.

Ignite in a statement said the NIC will create new opportunities for technology driven startups and entrepreneurs in one of Pakistan’s leading industrial and export hubs.

NIC Sialkot, it said, will support up to 25 startups annually through mentorship, investor connections, business development support, market access, and digital innovation programmes.

“The initiative aims to accelerate entrepreneurship, strengthen export competitiveness, and foster innovation in emerging fields such as AI, Industry 4.0, advanced manufacturing, health technologies, and digital commerce,” it added.

To achieve its goal of building a knowledge economy in Pakistan, Ignite focuses on ecosystem development projects and fourth industrial wave technology.

Whereas, an NIC is a government-backed platform in different cities of Pakistan designed to support entrepreneurs and startups by providing mentorship, resources, and networking opportunities to foster innovation and economic growth.

Metal founder and CEO Usman Gul, also a founder of Airlift, announced the news via a social media post, stating that Rebel Fund has made a strategic investment in the company as part of a new partnership between the two organisations.

According to the statement, posted on social media, Rebel Fund employs a data-driven investment model, leveraging large datasets and a proprietary investment framework to identify and invest in top-performing startups. The fund claims to have backed more than 300 startups to date, focusing on the top 10% of companies from YC batches.

“Today, we’re announcing a partnership whereby Rebel Fund made a strategic investment in Metal, and we are excited to offer Rebel portfolio companies 25% off on all plans,” said Gul.

Further details regarding the size of the investment and the terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded by Usman Gul, Metal operates as an AI operating system designed to assist founders with their fundraising and venture capital workflows.

The AI platform provides deep intelligence and automation to assist startups’ funding rounds.

Meanwhile, as per information available on Rebel’s website, the company’s investing partners are accomplished Y Combinator alumni who have co-founded companies now valued at over $100B in aggregate — including Reddit, Instacart, Cruise, Gusto, Scribd, Rappi, and more — and together invested in over 250 startups with top-decile portfolio returns.

Rebel has unique access to top Y Combinator startups with a nearly 100% deal win rate, typically pre-Demo Day. The fund utilises a proprietary machine-learning algorithm called Rebel Theorem 4.0 to help validate and screen potential investments, building a diversified portfolio of Y Combinator startups that is statistically powered to outperform, it added.

Speaking on the occasion, Haroon Akhtar Khan said that in line with the Prime Minister’s vision, the government is undertaking comprehensive measures for the digital transformation of the SME sector. He stated that connecting Pakistani businesses with international markets through e-commerce platforms remains a key priority of the government.

He further said that collaboration with Alibaba Group will create new opportunities for youth, entrepreneurs, and startups, while also contributing to the promotion of exports and digital commerce in Pakistan.

READ MORE: PM visits Alibaba Group HQs in Hangzhou

Haroon Akhtar Khan emphasized that the SME sector serves as the backbone of the national economy and that the government is committed to promoting investment, exports, and industrial growth through business-friendly policies.

He described the partnership between SMEDA and Alibaba Group as an important step toward strengthening Pakistan’s digital economy and enhancing international business connectivity.

Secretary Industries and Production Saif Anjum and the Additional Secretary Industries and Production were also present at the signing ceremony.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026

Speaking at a session titled “Securing Capital and Global Survival for Pakistani Startups” at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Karachi, Zaidi said investors are ultimately driven by returns, and startups must structure their models accordingly to attract sustainable financing.

He cautioned founders against adopting only Western startup narratives, saying Pakistan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem should instead draw lessons from successful local examples operating within domestic constraints.

Zaidi also pointed to structural challenges in Pakistan’s financial environment, noting that a significant portion of capital remains outside formal channels, which affects access to financing for legitimate startups.

The session, organised by the Center for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), brought together student founders, alumni, and industry participants, who engaged the former FBR chief on taxation, regulatory compliance, and cross-border expansion strategies.

CED Director Dr Lalarukh Ejaz said Zaidi’s experience across public policy and corporate sectors offered valuable insights for entrepreneurs navigating a difficult economic landscape.

IBA officials said the institution continues to support startups through incubation, mentorship, and investor linkages as part of its broader entrepreneurship ecosystem.

According to a statement on Thursday, SAP represents a major step toward building a stronger, innovation-driven, and inclusive startup ecosystem in Sindh.

The program was inaugurated by Syed Qassim Naveed Qamar, Special Assistant to the Chief Minister, Government of Sindh, alongside Raja Khurram Shahzad Umer, Secretary Investment, Government of Sindh.

In her welcome address, Dr Lalarukh Ejaz, Director IBA CED, reaffirmed IBA CED’s commitment to strengthening Pakistan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem through mentorship, training, and institutional support for high-potential startups.

She also acknowledged the continued collaboration and support of the Government of Sindh, SEDF, and Sapphire Consulting Services in enabling impactful entrepreneurial initiatives.

Pakistani co-founded AI startup Cursor draws $60bn buyout option from SpaceX

Addressing the participants, Syed Qassim Naveed Qamar reiterated his government’s commitment to empowering entrepreneurs and enabling startups to transform potential into progress through access to resources, mentorship, and institutional facilitation.

Meanwhile, speaking at the occasion, Raja Khurram Shahzad Umer shared the Sindh government’s vision to continue creating entrepreneurial opportunities for the youth and startup community of the province. He described entrepreneurship as a mindset, encouraging founders to think boldly and build fearlessly.

Khizer Pervaiz, CEO of SEDF, highlighted the organisation’s continued efforts in enterprise development and acknowledged IBA CED as a key partner in supporting startups across Sindh.

During the ceremony, laptops were also distributed among the participating startups.

The remarks were made by Zarrar Hasham Khan, Federal Secretary of IT & Telecommunication, during the National Incubation Centre Karachi, an Ignite initiative under the Ministry of IT & Telecom, graduation ceremony of 28 startups from its 13th cohort.  

“The graduation ceremony at NIC Karachi reflects the hard work and determination of our entrepreneurs,” said Zarrar Hasham.

“Through the ministry’s global programs and continued support, we are committed to connecting our startups with international opportunities and markets. At the same time, founders must embrace emerging technologies, particularly AI, not just to stay relevant but to lead innovation.

Learning AI and integrating it into business models will significantly enhance productivity, efficiency, and global competitiveness,” he added.

Since its inception, NIC Karachi has incubated over 440 startups, created more than one million jobs, generated over Rs12 billion in revenues and raised over Rs13 billion in investments. The centre provides incubation, mentorship, legal and financial advisory, investor access, and advanced labs in fintech, industrial automation, and media.

Pakistani co-founded AI startup Cursor draws $60bn buyout option from SpaceX

Addressing the graduation ceremony, Syed Azfar Hussain, Project Director at NIC Karachi, emphasised the significance of the graduation, stating, “NIC Karachi takes great pride in witnessing these startups achieve this important milestone. The consistent mentorship and support extended throughout their journey have been instrumental in shaping their growth and readiness for the market.

As these startups graduate, we remain committed to our role as a leading force in Pakistan’s incubation landscape, continuing to empower and elevate the next generation of innovative entrepreneurs across the country.”

He further stated, “NIC Karachi, in partnership with Ignite and MoITT, has successfully fostered an environment that encourages entrepreneurship and innovation. NIC Karachi is committed to supporting the startup ecosystem in Pakistan, and we strive to empower Pakistani startups, catalysing innovation, and contributing to the overall economic prosperity of the country.”

Muhammad Bilal Abbasi, General Manager Projects at Ignite, highlighted the significance of the graduation of Cohort 13, noting the steady growth of Pakistan’s startup ecosystem and its increasing visibility on the global stage.

He shared that Ignite’s National Incubation Centres (NICs), established across major cities, have become strong platforms for innovation and entrepreneurship, supporting startups in building practical, market-ready solutions, particularly in the technology space.

Abbasi added that the graduating startups of Cohort 13 reflect this progress, demonstrating the impact of structured mentorship, access to funding opportunities, and strong industry connections.

He emphasised that NICs continue to play an important role in preparing startups to scale, compete internationally, and contribute to Pakistan’s digital economy and broader economic prosperity by building innovative, export-oriented ventures that generate jobs, attract investment, and strengthen the country’s long-term economic growth.

The event also featured testimonials from startup founders, who shared their entrepreneurial journeys, key milestones, and success stories.

They highlighted how NIC Karachi’s structured incubation program, mentorship, and access to industry networks played a pivotal role in transforming their ideas into scalable and sustainable businesses. The ceremony concluded with a formal certificate distribution segment, where the guests presented certificates to the graduating startups.

Along with OpenAI and Anthropic, Cursor is one of several Silicon Valley startups that have drawn waves of developers by using artificial intelligence to automate coding, a business where AI companies have found early commercial traction.

The deal could give xAI, the ⁠Grok chatbot maker that SpaceX merged with in February, a stronger foothold in the AI coding market where it has so far lagged rivals. It also provides Cursor with more computing capacity to develop AI models.

“The combination of Cursor’s leading product and distribution to expert software engineers with SpaceX’s million H100 equivalent Colossus training supercomputer will allow us to build the world’s most useful models,” SpaceX said in an X post on Tuesday.

“Cursor has also given SpaceX the right to acquire Cursor later this year for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for our work together.”

Colossus is xAI’s supercomputer cluster ⁠in Memphis, which it has touted as the largest in the world. The company has been spending billions of dollars on AI infrastructure.

According to Forbes, Sualeh Asif, originally from Karachi, cofounded Cursor with three friends from MIT.

Asif, boosting a net worth of $1.3 billion, represented Pakistan in the International Math Olympiad from 2016 to 2018.

As per the report, Cursor reached a $29.3 billion valuation in November 2025, after raising $2.3 billion. The startup claims to have more than $1 billion in annualised revenue.

“This is a profoundly proud moment for Pakistan, and undeniable proof for our youth that there is no ceiling to what they can achieve,” Bilal bin Saqib, the Chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, said in a post ​on Thursday.

Saqib noted that talent has never been Pakistan’s problem. “What we lack is the ecosystem to support them locally,” he said.

He was of the view that Sualeh’s story should inspire two things in every young Pakistani, i.e. immense pride and the stubborn conviction.

“We don’t lack brilliant minds; we lack the right conditions. With the right policy, capital, and leadership that treats our youth as our greatest asset, this is a fully solvable problem,” he said.

Meanwhile, the announcement comes ahead of SpaceX’s highly anticipated public debut in the coming months, with the company eyeing ⁠a valuation of close to $1.75 trillion and a $75 billion fundraise that could go down as the biggest IPO in history.

Two product engineering heads at Cursor, a startup that sells ⁠AI models for coding tasks, said in March they joined SpaceX to contribute to the company’s lunar projects and xAI, Musk’s AI startup that ⁠is now part of SpaceX.

Musk welcomed the engineers, Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg, saying, “Orbital space centres and mass drivers on the Moon will be incredible.”

In just two years, outstanding SME lending has climbed from roughly Rs560 billion to just under Rs1 trillion, even as policy rates remained in double digits and monetary conditions stayed tight.

More importantly, the expansion is not simply the result of larger tickets booked to familiar names.

The number of SME borrowers has also risen sharply, from around 175,000 to more than 300,000. By any serious standard, this is a genuine access-to-finance and inclusion story, and one that deserves full appreciation.

The immediate driver is hardly mysterious. The SBP’s Risk Coverage Scheme (Credit Guarantee Scheme) launched in Jul 2024 altered the incentive structure for commercial banks by offering portfolio-level first-loss coverage on incremental SME lending.

In effect, the state moved away, at least partially, from subsidizing the price of credit through concessional low-markup schemes and began instead to absorb part of the credit downside through a fiscally budgeted contingent liability. That is, in principle, a cleaner approach. It suggests that policymakers have finally moved closer to the real constraint in SME finance.

The problem was never merely the cost of funds; it was always risk, or more precisely, the willingness to bear it.

So far, the scheme appears to have delivered exactly what it was supposed to deliver. Credit has expanded, borrower counts have increased, and banks have entered segments they long approached with visible hesitation. All of that deserves to be acknowledged plainly. Yet this is precisely why the present moment demands scrutiny rather than applause alone. Once a guarantee starts moving credit at scale, the relevant question is no longer whether it works. The real question is what kind of market it is creating, and what exactly the banking system is learning from it.

That question matters because Pakistan is not merely using a new instrument; it is slowly replacing one philosophy of public credit support with another. The old model relied on cheap liquidity, concessional windows, and hidden or semi-hidden subsidy. The new one, at least on paper, is more transparent: the subsidy is not embedded in the markup, but budgeted explicitly through risk coverage. That is a step forward. But better optics do not guarantee better architecture. An instrument may be more modern in form, yet still deeply flawed in design.

The problem is straightforward. A blanket portfolio-level first-loss cover does not merely encourage banks to lend more; it also shields them against a portion of the expected loss embedded in rapid incremental origination. And in any business cycle, rapid credit growth rarely reflects a sudden flowering of underwriting discipline. It is usually accompanied by thinner filters, faster approvals, weaker screening, more aggressive sales behaviour, and a gradual drift down the quality curve. That is not cynicism. It is how lending booms work. When volume is pushed hard, credit standards usually widen long before institutions admit they have widened.

In SME lending, that risk is even more acute. Small businesses are inherently harder to underwrite in a formal banking framework. Financial statements are often weak or incomplete, collateral is inconsistent, cash flows are volatile, documentation is thin, and recoveries are cumbersome. In such an environment, the line between genuine financial inclusion and sloppy origination can become blurred very quickly. If the state steps in at that stage with blanket first-loss protection, banks are not necessarily being taught to understand SME risk better. They may simply be learning that part of the ordinary downside can now be shifted elsewhere.

This is where the distinction between expected loss and unexpected loss becomes central. Some losses are normal. They are part of lending, and especially part of lending into difficult segments. Such losses must remain with the lender, as they are not a policy problem; rather, a failure of underwriting discipline, monitoring quality, collections effort, or borrower selection. Beyond that lies unexpected loss, which emerges when the cycle turns, correlations rise, margins compress, demand weakens, and even competently originated portfolios come under stress. That is where a guarantee begins to make sense. It is meant to help lenders stretch into viable but difficult terrain without forcing them to absorb every unit of downside alone.

The trouble begins when that distinction is blurred, or worse, institutionalized away. If portfolio-wide, first-loss coverage becomes the governing template, the market starts will internalize the wrong lesson. From their perspective, banks no longer need to become materially better at pricing SME risk, segmenting borrowers intelligently, verifying cash flows more rigorously, or building stronger recovery systems. They simply need to become more willing to originate under a partial public cushion. Credit may grow under that model, but the market does not necessarily deepen. Volume rises, while capability lags.

That is why guarantee-led boom can look strongest precisely when it is most fragile. In the early phase, the numbers will flatter everyone. Disbursements are rising, inclusion improves, borrower counts has increased dramatically, and policymakers can point to a visible success story. Banks, for their part, acquire a new growth engine at a time when other segments are underperforming. Yet credit cycles are never judged at origination; they are judged in repayment. The real test comes later, when margins tighten, cash flows weaken, liquidity conditions shift, and the weaker cohorts begin to crack. That is when guarantee calls arrive, and that is precisely when bad design shall stop looking theoretical.

If the market has spent the upswing treating guarantees as protection against the ordinary deterioration that accompanies aggressive portfolio growth, the downturn will produce a very predictable backlash. What was celebrated as innovation in expansion will be denounced as fiscal leakage in stress. Questions will surface about moral hazard, adverse selection, and whether banks were ever truly carrying enough of the downside. Banking bureaucracy will then do what administrators usually do: narrow eligibility, harden documentation, slow approvals, and wrap the scheme in defensive caution. A promising instrument will begin to fail in public perception, not because the idea was unsound, but because the design confused credit expansion with credit discipline.

That is the risk policymakers and central bank should worry about now, while the numbers still look flattering. The country does need a functioning guarantee ecosystem. It does need to move away from opaque quasi-fiscal credit subsidies and toward explicit, budgeted, rules-based support. It does need instruments that help formal finance enter sectors it has historically ignored or mispriced. But none of that means every guarantee design is equally defensible. A guarantee cannot become a standing cleaning service for weak origination. If the public sector routinely absorbs the first layer of losses generated by aggressive growth, it is not strengthening the market. It is subsidizing the market’s failure to learn.

The right foundation is conceptually simple, even if it is politically less comfortable. The lender must continue to fear ordinary loss, because that is what keeps credit work honest. The first layer of pain must remain close enough to the originating institution that appraisal, monitoring, collections, and product design still matter. Public risk sharing should be reserved for genuine stress, frontier expansion, and forms of uncertainty that are real but difficult for private lenders to absorb alone. Otherwise, the guarantee ceases to be a catalyst and begins behaving like a cushion for routine slippage. At that point, the state is no longer helping the market take disciplined risk; it is helping the market postpone discipline.

Pakistan’s SME credit boom should therefore be read carefully, not just celebrated noisily. It may indeed mark the beginning of a better approach to access to finance. But that will depend on whether the local financial market understands what a credit guarantee is actually for. If it is used to share unexpected loss and enable disciplined expansion into underserved segments, it can help build a durable market. If it is treated as blanket first-loss comfort on incremental portfolios, it will encourage growth without forcing banks to truly learn SME risk.

A functioning guarantee market is not one that absorbs early losses and teaches bankers to avoid pain altogether. It is one that absorbs the right kind of pain: genuine stress, not weak credit work; frontier uncertainty, not routine slippage; market-building risk, not the ordinary consequences of growth outrunning discipline. Pakistan’s recent SME lending surge may prove that guarantees can move credit. The harder task now is to ensure they do not teach the market the wrong lesson. If that lesson is learned badly, a potentially useful innovation will not fail because the intent was misguided. It will fail because the foundation was.

In the two-day Pakistan Investor Summit 2026 hosted by National Incubation Center (NIC), Karachi, earlier this week, tech experts and investors stressed need for focusing on businesses that survive, while urging all stakeholders of the IT industry to promote collaboration and unlock new growth pathways.

Speaking to Business Recorder on the final day of the summit, Asma Zeeshan, Regional Business Head at Jazz, said building a business that survives requires a balance of clarity, discipline and adaptability.

“Startups must focus on solving a real problem, understanding their customer deeply through market research and data driven insights with value proposition,” she said.

Also read: NIC Karachi hosts Pakistan Investor Summit 2026

Asma was of the view that resilience comes from maintaining financial discipline, creating agile processes and staying focused on core strengths while continuously learning from the market.

“A good team culture is important in startups where everyone is heard and given value to the ideas, and has clarity on the company vision as it helps early investments to strengthen collaboration, diversity, and innovation.”

She said key drivers such as clear pitch, validated market, solid projections and bootstrapping helps reduce dilution early and helps to secure initial funding.

Asma said long-term sustainability is achieved when founders acquire and retain customers, have good financial management and cash control along with building the flexibility to adapt rapid market changes.

Meanwhile, highlighting aims and achievements of the moot, Syed Azfar Hussain, Project Director at NIC, Karachi, said the summit aimed to strengthen Pakistan’s startup investment landscape by connecting capital with high-potential ventures and enabling informed investment decisions.

He said the key objectives of the summit were to deepen investor understanding of startup ecosystems, facilitate meaningful connections between founders and investors, and position Pakistan as an emerging destination for venture capital.

“It also aimed to bring together diverse ecosystem stakeholders, including banks, regulators, telcos, and corporate leaders to foster collaboration and unlock new growth pathways.”

According to the NIC official, a major highlight was the announcement of eight NIC Karachi alumni startups collectively raising over $1 million, alongside others securing strategic corporate partnerships.

The summit convened a diverse network of participants, including around 25 investors/ecosystem enablers, who engaged directly with startups through curated meetings and discussions, a press release stated.

“This strong participation reflects the growing confidence in Pakistan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and the increasing appetite for early- and growth-stage investments,” it said.

Over the course of two days, the summit delivered an experience designed to maximize value for both startups and investors.

Also read: 30 startups graduate from NIC Karachi as part of 12th Cohort

The first day featured startup pitching sessions, where ventures from NIC Karachi Cohort 13 and Cohort 14 presented their ideas to a curated panel of investors, showcasing high-potential, scalable solutions and gaining direct access to funding opportunities and expert feedback.

The 2-day summit focused on dedicated one-on-one investor office hour sessions, enabling startups to engage in deeper discussions with investors, explore potential deals, and receive tailored insights in a more personalised setting.

“These interactions facilitated meaningful connections and opened pathways for future collaborations,” the statement said.

Collectively, participating startups from NIC Karachi demonstrated strong funding traction, with total portfolio funding reaching approximately $1.01 million (around Rs28.3 crore/283 million), according to the release.

“The funding mix reflects a balanced and evolving ecosystem, with equity-based investments accounting for nearly 70% of the total. Additionally, grant funding contributed approximately 27%, highlighting strong alignment with development and impact-driven initiatives, while minimal reliance on debt financing (around 2.5%) underscores a preference for sustainable and growth-oriented capital structures.”

Speaking on the occasion, Syed Azfar Hussain (Project Director) at NIC Karachi stated, “The Pakistan Investor Summit reflects our continued commitment to building a strong, connected investment ecosystem in Pakistan. By creating structured opportunities for engagement between startups and investors, we are not only facilitating access to capital but also enabling knowledge exchange, mentorship, and long-term partnerships. The quality of startups and the depth of investor interest we witnessed this year reaffirm that Pakistan’s innovation landscape is evolving with strength and purpose”.

NIC Karachi, established in 2018 at NED University, Karachi, is an Ignite-funded incubation center operated by LMKT and Lucky Landmark Pvt Ltd in partnership with Orbit Startups.

Startups raised approximately $74.2 million in reported funding in 2025, almost double the funds mobilised in 2024. The increase came in line with fundraising through hybrid financing models (combination of equity and debt), replacing the previous equity-only funding approach, according to invest2innovate (i2i), the firm that works to help build up the startup ecosystem in Pakistan.

The change in fundraising approach helped a number of startups belonging to different sectors of the economy to receive much-needed financing last year, emerging on the business horizon in the country including logistics, healthtech, transportation, entertainment, and wedding tech with additional undisclosed deals in sports tech and software as a service (SaaS)/cloud computing.

Also read: US tech firm AutoAcquire AI acquires Pakistani AI startup Virtuans in seven-figure deal

Speaking to Business Recorder on the sidelines of the closing ceremony of a 2-year i2i ecosystem project supported by Visa Foundation titled ‘Ecosystem Signals 2026’, i2i CEO Sarah Munir said, “For 2026 and onwards, as macroeconomic conditions improve and investor confidence slowly returns, we expect funding to remain selective and efficiency-driven, with greater emphasis on hybrid financing structures, revenue-backed growth models, and capital-efficient startups. The ecosystem is entering a phase where more disciplined capital deployment and diversified funding pathways could create a healthier, more sustainable investment environment”.

Speaking at a panel discussion on ‘Where Capital Goes Next in 2026’, at the ceremony; i2i Ventures co-founder Misbah Naqvi said bilateral/multilateral creditors and development finance institutions (DFIs) were interested in supporting the development of ecosystem for startups in Pakistan.

These institutions could play a key role in making the finances available to startups, work on guarantees and “come to a structure where the first risk is mitigated by a third party, and not by inherently the actual business model”, according to Naqvi.

She said even banks were opening up their balance-sheet to startups and SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) with the condition of submission of collateral (guarantees) by startups, as they continued to operate with a traditional mindset that is their right.

Moreover, venture debt - another type of capital - is also an opportunity for startups to access, according to Naqvi.

“We do not have venture debt as such in Pakistan. There are some regional players that have invested in Pakistani startups…they [startups in Pakistan] have access to venture debt through them [investors] which is dollar dominated debt.”

However, in that case, most of local startups might face the question of repaying the debt, as “they do not have earnings in foreign currencies like in the US dollar”, she added.

Hybrid financing replaces equity-only funding model

The CEO Munir further said Pakistani startups raised approximately $74.2 million in reported funding in 2025, almost double the funds raised in 2024.

“This is a notable shift from the previous year not just in size but in structure. The majority of this capital came through hybrid equity–debt deals, which accounted for roughly $66 million across 16 transactions, while pure equity funding totaled about $8.2 million.

“Notable raises included Haball’s $52 million hybrid round, along with funding secured by MedIQ, Qist Bazaar, and BusCaro,“ she said.

Pakistan startups raised around $33.5 million in 2024, largely driven by equity-only financing.

“While current funding levels remain well below the $350+ million peaks of 2021–2022, the 2025 figures signal a meaningful recovery and a growing shift toward more diversified financing structures in Pakistan’s startup ecosystem,” CEO Munir said.

Meanwhile, i2i Growth & Strategy Deputy Director Aleena Khan said hybrid financing (equity + debt) had risen from merely $1 million in 2024 to $66 million in 2025, accounting for 89% of total funds raised at $74.2 million in 2025.

She further said e-commerce funding had collapsed, falling from the largest funded sector in 2024 at 55.2% of capital to a negligible share in 2025.

Khan informed that female founded startups secured 31% of deals in 2025, up from 13% in 2024, signaling improved access, “though their share of capital slipped to 14% from 16%, underscoring a persistent scale gap”.

“Funding to female-founded or cofounded startups nearly doubled, increasing from $5.5 million in 2024 to $10.1 million in 2025…Higher deal participation did not translate into proportional capital, indicating smaller average deal sizes for female-founded startups,” she said.

Against this backdrop, PinkDetect emerges not just as a technological fix, but as a deeply contextual response to a problem rooted as much in society as in science.

It is founded by Suha Suleman Lalani, a biomedical science graduate from Ryerson University and currently pursuing her master’s in public health at Harvard. During her tenure at Microsoft, Suha led generative AI initiatives for healthcare and life sciences clients, where she discovered the transformative potential of technology in saving lives. Inspired by this vision along with her personal grief, she created PinkDetect, Pakistan’s first-of-its-kind solution, designed to revolutionise breast health by early detection, and accessible care.

After experiencing the loss of a loved one to breast cancer, Suha was confronted firsthand with the devastating cost of late detection. What followed was not just the creation of an app, but the building of an ecosystem designed to help women understand their breast cancer risk early before symptoms escalate into life-threatening realities.

At its core, the platform blends artificial intelligence with local data, ethical design, and community-based outreach, attempting to shift breast health from crisis response to preventive care.

Technology built for Pakistani women

What sets PinkDetect apart is how deliberately it is grounded in local realities. Traditional breast cancer risk models, such as the Gail Model, are largely developed using Western datasets and often fail to reflect the biological, social, and lifestyle patterns of women in South Asia.

“The Gail Model didn’t work for us —it was built for Western, Caucasian women. Pakistani women were invisible in that data. So we built our own approach,” Suha explained.

PinkDetect’s AI-driven risk assessment model addresses this gap by training on locally relevant demographic and health data. By leveraging a large language model trained on contextual information, the platform analyses structured questionnaire responses to determine whether a woman falls into a low, moderate, or high-risk category.

Users begin by completing a structured questionnaire that covers menstrual history, reproductive milestones, family history of breast or ovarian cancer, and general health indicators. The AI then generates a personalised risk profile, categorising users into low, moderate, or high risk groups. But the platform does not stop at clarification. Based on a user’s risk level, PinkDetect offers tailored guidance, including automated reminders for regular self-exams, step-by-step tutorials illustrated with simple visuals, and symptom-tracking tools that allow women to monitor changes over time.

For women flagged at high risk, the platform bridges the often fragmented gap between awareness and care by directing them to nearby diagnostic facilities. In doing so, it transforms a digital assessment into a tangible pathway toward clinical intervention.

A clinical study published in the Pakistan Journal of Health found that early detection rates in clinics and hospitals using PinkDetect increased from 41% to 58%, marking a significant improvement in the odds of diagnosing breast cancer at earlier, more treatable stages.

Moving beyond app: Breaking social barriers

Yet technology alone cannot dismantle the deeply entrenched social barriers that surround women’s health in Pakistan. In many communities, conversations around breast health remain taboo, compounded by limited access to healthcare facilities and digital tools.

“In our focus groups, many women compared mammograms to something that would compromise their morality,” Suha said. “There were widespread misconceptions—that breast cancer is contagious, that it should be kept quiet, or that it can be passed from mother to daughter. This culture of silence made it difficult even to convince women to undergo free clinical breast exams.”

Recognising this, PinkDetect deliberately expanded its work beyond the app itself.

One arm of the initiative focuses on screening camps, organised in partnership with local organisations. These camps provide free clinical breast examination while also creating safe spaces for women to learn how to conduct self-exams. The emphasis is not just on screening, but on translating awareness into habit, encouraging women to take ownership of their health in ways that feel practical and achievable.

The second arm, which is trained in the trainer programme, works at the grassroots level. PinkDetects train lady health workers at the district and community levels, equipping them with the knowledge and tools to educate women directly in their homes. These health workers go door-to-door, teaching breast self-examination techniques and, where possible, guiding women on how to use the PinkDetect application. Designed to create a ripple effect, the programme enables a single trained health worker to reach dozens of households, making breast health education accessible to women with no prior experience with digital healthcare tools.

Ethical AI and design with dignity

From the outset, PinkDetect has been shaped by ethical considerations. User data is collected anonymously. A critical safeguard in a context where fear of exposure can prevent women from seeking care. This commitment allows the platform to generate meaningful population-level insights without compromising individual dignity.

The app’s design language is equally intentional. Instead of graphic imagery that can provoke discomfort or resistance, PinkDetect relies on cartoon-based animations to demonstrate self-examination techniques. By prioritising comfort, clarity, and consent, the platform reframes breast health as an act of self-care rather than fear.

When early detection saves lives

The impact of PinkDetect becomes most visible when awareness turns into action. At one screening camp, approximately 35 women were examined and four were diagnosed with abnormalities. One case was identified as stage 2 invasive ductal carcinoma. Doctors noted that, without early detection, it could have progressed to stage 3, significantly reducing survival outcomes.

Crucially, PinkDetect does not abandon women after diagnosis.

Through partnerships with Fortune 500 companies and international organisations, including Western Union, the Roddenberry Foundation, Harvard Innovation Labs, and Future Trust—the initiative provides support to these women.

In one case, the PinkDetect team helped connect a diagnosed patient with donors who covered her chemotherapy costs. At the time of reporting, she had completed multiple treatment cycles and was responding well—an outcome that underscores the life-saving potential of pairing early detection with sustained support.

The initiative has also pushed boundaries of inclusion. In collaboration with the Binae Education Foundation, PinkDetect conducted Karachi’s first-ever breast cancer awareness workshop for visually impaired women, adapting educational tools to ensure no community remains invisible.

Between innovation and reality

As PinkDetect scales, expanding partnerships across Sindh and Punjab, developing a discreet WhatsApp based chatbot, and introducing tools to help women differentiate between normal lactation-related pain and potential cancer symptoms—it stands at a critical intersection.

The initiative demonstrates what becomes possible when artificial intelligence listens before it intervenes, adapts to lived realities, and works alongside communities rather than above them. At the same time, it exposes the limits of innovation within a healthcare system constrained by fragile infrastructure and persistent stigma.

According to Suha, the mindset around breast cancer awareness in Pakistan is gradually changing.

“Reaching 50,000 women wouldn’t have been possible without the gradual shift in awareness” Suha said. “They start asking questions, seeking to learn more. During one of our camps one woman approached me and said ‘I live nearby, I’ll bring my daughter and sister too.’ It is inspiring to see how open women are becoming to seeking knowledge.”

That moment, she explained, marked a shift.

“That’s when I realised we weren’t just reaching individuals, we were creating a ripple effect, where knowledge was being passed from one generation of women to the next.”

Woman behind the work

Suha has a rare ability to translate complex community health challenges into actionable, tech-based solutions without losing sight of the human stories beneath the data.

She has positioned the initiative as more than a startup. It is a catalyst, reshaping how breast health is understood, discussed, and acted upon in Pakistan.

What PinkDetect ultimately offers is not a silver bullet, but a framework: one where innovation is rooted in empathy, technology is guided by ethics, and early detection becomes not a privilege, but a possibility.

The acquisition, valued at seven figures USD in a combination of cash and equity, comes less than two years after Virtuans launched operations, which is a testament to the calibre of AI innovation emerging from Pakistan, read a statement.

Meanwhile, both founders, Raheel and Mudassar, have been appointed to leadership positions at AutoAcquire.

Virtuans AI developed autonomous conversational agents capable of handling sales and customer support functions across businesses.

“We built Virtuans with the belief that AI agents should not just respond to queries, but truly understand context, learn from interactions, and deliver outcomes that match or exceed human performance,” said Muddassar Sharif, co-founder of Virtuans AI.

“This acquisition validates that vision and opens doors to apply our technology at a much larger scale in one of America’s biggest markets.”

Meanwhile, Raheel Ahmad, co-founder of Virtuans AI, expressed that the acquisition “sends a strong signal” that Pakistani AI talent can build world-class technology, attract US companies, and take leading roles in global tech firms.

AutoAcquire AI, led by auto software industry veteran Anthony Monteiro, aims to transform how automotive dealerships acquire vehicles in the United States, unifying targeting, offers, inspections, logistics, and fraud protection into a single AI-driven platform.

“Virtuans has built an impressive foundation in intelligent automation and AI agent development,” said Anthony Monteiro, CEO at AutoAcquire AI.

“By bringing their expertise into AutoAcquire AI, we are expanding our ability to deliver agentic AI solutions that can operate proactively, communicate naturally, and drive real outcomes for dealers looking to scale acquisition efficiently.”

The acquisition positions Virtuans’ agentic AI technology at the heart of AutoAcquire’s efforts to disrupt the $1 trillion U.S. used car market.

A milestone for Pakistan’s tech ecosystem

Virtuans believes that the deal represents more than just a business transaction – it signals growing international recognition of Pakistan’s AI capabilities.

While Pakistani software developers have long contributed to global technology companies, this acquisition demonstrates that Pakistani founders can build proprietary AI platforms that command attention from established American acquirers.

“For a nation working to establish itself as a hub for technology innovation, the Virtuans acquisition offers proof that Pakistani startups can compete at the highest levels of the global AI industry,” read the statement.