Pakistan’s Truck It In raises $3 million, closes pre-seed at $4.5 million

In another development for Pakistan’s rising startup culture, Truck It In, a road freight solutions platform, announced it has raised $3 million in its latest funding round.

This closes Truck It In's pre-seed funding at $4.5 million, as the company earlier raised $1.5 million in April.

The funding round was led by Global Founders Capital and Fatima Gobi Ventures. Other investors which participated in the round include Picus Capital and Zayn Capital, reported Magnitt.

Pakistan's trucking marketplace Truck It In raises $1.5M in pre-seed

This Karachi-based startup was launched in August 2020 by Muhammad Sarmad Farooq, Raza Afzal, and Haider Navid, to simplify road freight in Pakistan. The startup hopes to make freight movement more efficient by connecting truckers and shippers through its online platform.

The company plans to utilise its latest funds by expanding its services and product features.

Advisor to Prime Minister on Trade and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood congratulated Truck It In on successfully raising $3mn funding.

"I have always been a strong believer in the abilities of our youth," said Dawood in a tweet post. He said that the latest development is in line with the government's focus on regional trade and connectivity.

"Improvement of the logistics sector will not contribute to this objective but it will also lead to employment generation," he said.

Pakistan’s startup culture has become quite active in recent months. In the whole of 2020, Pakistani startups received an investment of $77 million whereas, in just 8 months of 2021, investments in Pakistani startups have crossed $258 million, according to Ignite.

Investments in Pakistani startups cross $258m mark

That is a growth of more than three times over 2020 with another four months still to go.

Sectors that are attracting investment include eCommerce, transport/logistics, Fintech, Healthech, Retailtech, and Edtech. So far, 37 Pakistani startups have raised funding of $228 million this year.

Six of them have raised more than $10 million dollars each including Airlift (eCommerce), Bazaar (retail tech), Cheetay (logistics), Tajir (retail tech), Educative (Edtech), and Finja (Fintech) in series A and series B funding this year.

A shift towards series A and B funding by many startups shows that they are growing and planning a national and international expansion of their operations.