Pakistan’s Salman Habib, Hassan Chaudhry make it to Forbes 30 under 30 list

Two Pakistanis - Salman Habib and Hassan Chaudhry - are among 600 people featured on the Forbes ‘30 Under 30 United States 2026’ list, spotlighting America’s brightest young entrepreneurs.

Habib was honored in the ‘Transportation & Aerospace’ category. He is the co-founder and CEO of Burq, which enables businesses to offer delivery without the need to invest in building up its own infrastructure.

Founded in 2021 by Salman and his older brother Shaban, the company has created a nationwide delivery network consolidating over 500 providers, including Uber and DoorDash, across more than 4,000 U.S. cities, according to Forbes.

The company has raised over $10 million from investors and serves customers including grocery giants Albertsons, Safeway and Kroger.

Salman said it felt “pretty surreal” to be on the Forbes list.

“Really excited for what’s ahead and grateful for everyone who’s been part of the journey so far” he wrote on social media platform X.

Meanwhile, as a vice president on the BlackRock Private Equity Partners team, Hassan, honored under the ‘Venture Capital’ category, leads growth equity investments focused on Series C through pre-IPO stage.

Born in Pakistan, Hassan returned to BlackRock in 2023 to help launch its Growth Equity platform, through which he has invested over $800 million in the last two years.

Hassan’s career includes three exits and investments that he has led in companies like Groq (Series D lead and board observer) and Applied Intuition (Series F co-lead alongside Kleiner Perkins).

He also served on the LPAC of Glasswing Ventures II, a Boston-based and woman-led seed stage artificial intelligence fund.

As per Forbes, the competition has grown fiercer than when the list was first introduced in 2012.

“Each year, more than 10,000 people apply, and the bar to make the list continues to rise. Despite sweeping change, the requirements to be a pioneering entrepreneur remain constant: imagination, intelligence, and plenty of grit.”

The report said that the honorees on this year’s list are leading the charge in the midst of an AI revolution.

“The new class is using machine learning to do everything from building robotic astronauts to creating powerful tools that let anyone become a genius coder or master artist.”