SECP amends regulations to greatly facilitate SMEs and Startups

The SECP has introduced amendments in the Companies (Further Issue of Shares) Regulations, 2020 to address the impediments faced by the corporate sector, particularly startups and small companies, in raising equity through conventional modes. Key changes include permission to convert one class of shares into another class, issuance of shares with differential rights without approval of the SECP, and specification of mechanism for valuation of non-cash assets.

As per the law, companies can have more than one kind of shares conferring varying rights of dividend, voting and participation depending upon the needs of its capital providers. The requirement of prior approval of SECP has now been abolished. Such a measure will considerably help reduce administrative burden and will contribute towards growth of fast-paced corporate world by removing a layer of regulatory approval.

Another vital amendment is to permit conversion of one class or kind of shares into another class or kind e.g. ordinary into preference shares. Currently, the Regulations only allow conversion of preference shares into ordinary shares while no mechanism is provided for other classes of shares. The change aims to facilitate companies in maintaining an optimal capital structure considering their own financial needs and demands of their shareholders.

Besides, a complete mechanism for valuation of immovable property, intangible assets or services has been introduced. Now, the consulting engineers registered with Pakistan Engineering Council and QCR rated chartered accountant firms will be eligible to conduct valuation for the purposes of the Act.

These amendments have been introduced in consideration of numerous queries and suggestions received from small companies and startups, and are at par with the international jurisdictions.

foodpanda thanks PRA on behalf of its homechefs for a much needed relief in sales tax

In order to create a favourable business environment, Punjab Revenue Authority decided to provide reduction in sales tax being charged on commissions for home based chefs. The rebate reduced sales tax from 16% to 5%, allowing better profitability and growth potential for homechefs operating on online food delivery platforms such as foodpanda.

Homechefs are essentially people operating out of their home kitchens who sell food through online platforms such as foodpanda. foodpanda currently have 5,000+ registered homechefs who have been taken on-board after stringent routine checks for food hygiene, quality, safety, packaging, etc. The company’s aim is to increase the homechefs base in the next two years and take it up to 100,000 registered homechefs.

Nauman Sikandar, CEO foodpanda, while sharing his thoughts said, “A big thank you to the Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) from foodpanda and our home chefs. The reduction in sales tax being charged on commissions for home-based chefs comes as a welcome respite. This move will help grow a new sector which has significant potential for financial and economic inclusion, specifically women economic empowerment. It would be ideal that other provinces also follow suit and implement the same for homechefs.”

Shahzadi Asghar, a registered homechef at foodpanda, while sharing her gratitude said, “It’s very difficult to do business in today’s situation, that too a home-based business. Thanks to foodpanda and PRA that sales tax is now reduced by 11% which in turn has significantly improved our margins. I am now thinking to expand my food venture with this favourable initiative.”

The visionary step by the Punjab Government must be supported by other provinces as the sector continues to grow exponentially across the country.

Pakistan’s DigiKhata launch an online store and grows $2 million seed to encourage small enterprises digitize bookkeeping

Karachi head office Business to Business ecommerce trade Dastgyr has increased three-point five million in a seed round give raise to SOSV, it declared today. The round that uses its total increase to date to four million dollars also contained the commitment of Asian Development Seedstars, Bahrain’s Zayani Venture Capital, Dubai’s Tricap properties, Edgebrook Partners and some angels containing Twiga Foods’ founder Grant Brook. It is the first Pakistani finance for most of these capitalists.

Established in 2020 by a team of former Careem and Airlift employees, Dastgyr grants mom-and-pop distributors, domestically known as kiryanas, to obtain directories for their stores – ranging from fast-moving users products to mobile accessories and envelopes, utilizing its mobile application. It presently reviews over two thousand SKUs on its trade center from different distributors, giving next-day transportation in Karachi and Lahore, the two cities where it works. The startup affirms to have provided thirty thousand wholesalers since its ritualistic introduction in September 2020.

It is working in a space that has made highly contentious in the previous two years. There are at least Ten Pakistani Corporations that are endeavoring to resolve the inefficacious in the delivery chain of grocery deals and with Dastgyr, five of them have uplifted three million dollars or more this year alone. What assembles it various from some of the other participants, though, is its asset-light commence. Dastgyr does not possess or keep any inventory. Its distributors ship the products to its arranging centers after getting the orders from consumers where they are rectified and then sent to distributors.

Muhammad Owais Qureshi and Zohaib Ali Dastgyr’s co-founders had already operated all together at Airlift. In a declaration, Owais, elaborated, “Zohaib [my co-founder] and I have already performed broad execute in operating people. We have considered and even rectified many of the issues in transport logistics but the movement of products is a far larger issue for the economy as a whole. Once the widespread immersed, this problem was increased and no one was hit harder than small enterprises. We introduced Dastgyr to sustain those small business people such as Abdul and Saeed who belong to Lahore and Karachi and two of our very first users.

The ecommerce startup is also equipping to initiate different types of digital granting solutions for wholesalers. It has been investigating with a get now reimburse later option for distributors, empowering them to remit the remittance for acquired inventory, “Our pilot for the BNPL detail has been advancing for some time with our most reliable user cohort . Moreover, we have observed excellent traction. Users who have obtained a BNPL facility have since raised their usual basket size, verifying our speculation and directing the path to ascend the experiment, Founding Member and Head of Product at Dastgyr Haseeb Siddiqui.

In inclusion to BNPL, Dastgyr also designs to initiate microloans that will support the wholesalers enlarge their business by adjoining more categories, developing store capacity, or buying appliances such as refrigerators and shelves. Dastgyr would not finance any of the credits from its books. It will rather execute with different participants for all the loan solutions, elaborated the startup, without revealing further information.

In addition to introducing its fintech offerings, Dastgyr organizes to avail the finance to increase its technology and scale operations.

General Manager at SOSV, in a statement William Bao Bean told that Pakistan is realizing the same designs as India 5 years ago and China 10 years ago: with 75% of the population keeping a smartphone, the motivator in mobile-first services will be the winners. We are specifically inspired by Dastgyr’s culture of growth: the company’s fintech providing is absolutely a game-changer for the unbanked and unsubsidized while securing the success of their businesses. We are significantly inspired by the company’s culture of growth and are proud to have the organization as part of our profile.

Pakistani startups collected $120 million In the first half of 2021

The resent flurry of overseas shareholders has supported enhance round sizes outstandingly as 20 of the 35 agreements were worth more than $1 million. The first half of 2021 has manifested to be stellar for the Pakistani constitution. According to data assembled by Data Darbaar, total finance into the country’s ecosystem negotiated $120 million across 35 unique agreements. This figure is likely twice as much as the $66 million enrolled during the whole of 2020 when forty-eight deals were submitted.

The activity was primarily taken by the e-commerce industry which cumulatively captured more than $42 million dollars across 11 deals in the first 6 months of the present year, exceeding achieved during all of 2020.

This points to a shift from the dominance of transportation and administrations which had guided the finance value in each of the previous two years.

Separately from the Series B of Jabberwock Vulteers — the group of Cheetay and Swyft which was never properly revealed but is recorded to be around twenty million dollars, Tajir registered the biggest deal value around seventeen million dollars at Series A.

The e-commerce industry rise to the financing leaderboard from the second position appeared to be the back of a problem of business to business associations doing towards computing the market supply chain, or what the i2i perceptions known as DukanTech.

It was these participants that collected in the mind-blowing number of the money at $37 million, making up 90% of the sector’s total.

All five of them Bazaar, Tajir, Salesflo, Retailo and Dastgyr had increased a collaborated almost $6 million in 2020, thus denoting a flow of almost six times in less than a year.

Grocerapp, which executes in the direct to customer segment, also fixed almost $5 million ultimately in June.

Fintech too ultimately stayed up to the murmur that encloses it, at least as far as fundraising is associated, as it collected in close to $32 million in the period under review.

The major operators here were Sadapay’s almost seven million and TAG’s approximately $6 million among electronic money organizations while financing platforms Seedlabs and KTrade bagged almost seven million dollars and $5 million respectively.

In collation, the whole of 2020 had determined probably ten million dollars poured into the industry nearly single-handedly provided by Finja’s nine million dollars which computed another more than one million dollars from Habib Bank Ltd in 2021 to eventually close its Series A round.

More than half of the deals happened at the seed series while six were Series A. Which observed ten Pre-Series A, only one such round has been registered so far unlike 2020.

City-wise, Karachi extended to top the charts with twenty-one deals under its belt value at approximately fifty million dollars. On the other hand, Lahore took in terms of worth although Jabberwock’s finance is involved.

As far as founder enumeration are associated, there was rarely any observable change since around 97pc of the total investment moved to male-founded initiations across twenty-seven deals.

Only two were completely showed by women while six had women as co-initiators. Uniformly, 86pc of the funding moved towards originators that had at least one oversea-educated initiator.

On the grant side of money, the first half of 2021 observed the association of 88 unique institutional capitalists of which 65 were overseas.

Venture capital determines clearly intimidated the overall score at 56 while the number of incorporate was 10. The keeping were either formal or blockchain-targeted investment firms, private integrity or mafia.

The period also observed the entry of some huge global entities into the Pakistani ecosystem, most primarily Kleiner Perkins which has funded more than twelve hundred startups to date and uplifts at least seventeen unicorns, containing Instacart.

The recent eruption of oversea capitalists has supported an increase in the round sizes crucially, which can be determined from the fact that twenty of the thirty-five deals were assets more than one million dollars.

At least 15 of these had one or more overseas guide investors. Although, as far as the deal count is fixed, Fatima Gobi Ventures was the most prominent with four ventures.

Sarmayacar, Global Founders Capital and i2i investments intently perused with three deals each.

Pakistani Startup Trukkr raises $600,000 for trucking marketplace

Karachi-head office Trukkr has increased $600,000 in seed financing led by Peter Findley, it informed Pakistan Tech News. The shareholder is a Partner at Anchorless, a New York-head office VC targeted on Bangladesh. The deal also contained collaboration from Pakistan-aimed investor Kinnow VC, Kargo Technologies founder and CEO Tiger Fang, and an executive from Cue Health. In addition to fair financing, the startup has also increased an untold amount of money in debt investment.

Read More about recently funded Pakistani Startups

Established in 2020 by Sheryar Bawany, Waqas Khatri, Ali Haji, Mishal Adamjee, and Kasra Zunnaiyer, Trukkr supports businesses transport their commodities across Pakistan availing its network of transporters. Its marketplace promotes considered transporters and truck drivers and matches loads in real-time and fair pricing for both sides. Since its set up, the inception maintains to have provided twenty thousand trucking movements for various businesses in Pakistan as well as leading large organizations such as Artistic Milliners, Ittehad Chemicals, and Master Group.

Trukkr has also constructed an assigned logistics arrangement platform that can be utilized by companies to control their nimble, customers, and transporters. The platform is entirely free-to-use for Trukkr’s users.

There are at least ten domestic and territorial online trucking markets working in Pakistan. Talking about how they are dissimilar, Waqas Khatri Trukkr’s co-founder described Pakistan Tech News that their technology is impressive and is being utilized by some of the biggest companies in the country. They are not only utilizing our marketplace to proceed their commodities all over Pakistan but our online software as well to control their entire organization operations.

Peter Findley appears to admit with the bit about technology. Trukkr’s technology is top in a class not just in Pakistan but also in worldwide markets. Its administration team has a great consideration of how to apply the delivery solution. Their understanding of graph theory permits them to guide routes in a way that reduces waste. This leads to a capability to develop the carbon footprint of the trucking industry and also their alliances.

Before initiating Trukkr, its Sheryar Bawany co-founder utilized to conduct a logistics company in Karachi. After executing that for ten years, he joined with his co-founders to resolve the incapability in the domestic trucking firm availing technology. With a practiced operations team guided by the founders and a strong, complete and confined technology platform integrated house, we have done more than twenty thousand trips since we launched operations in 2020. We also received a positive response from our users has been overwhelming, he said in a discussion with Pakistan Tech News.

Kinnow VC Faaez Ul Haq told that we are delighted to finance in Trukkr as they get on the huge opportunity that the Pakistani cargo market represents. We focused on several players in this space, and the Trukkr team emerged for their deep proficiency, capability to quickly perform, and rich product providing.

The startup plans to avail the latest investments to further raise its technology and enlarge its operations.

Dukan.pk and Extreme Commerce Partner to help Micro-Entrepreneurship

With the routine objective of enabling the people of Pakistan to attain self-reliance by e-commerce and digital skills. Dukan.pk has combined with extreme Commerce to support domestic businesses promote online.

Extreme Commerce is the biggest online trading company in Pakistan with nearly seven lakh members. It has educated and improved thousands of people to trade online and produce more than one hundred million dollars in sales through Amazon, eBay, and other platforms.

Helped by a team of the industry means, Dukan has supported generate over sixty thousand online stores and developing three hundred and fifty per cent month on month. It gives domestic sellers with a free, easy, and productive platform to establish their web stores and trade online.

This collaboration will authorize anyone with a smartphone to get e-commerce trading skills and provide them with easy-to-use technology empowering web store production, online payments and delivery control.

There are presently over five Million micro and small enterprises in Pakistan that are keen to link the e-commerce transformation but acquire the technical know-how. Pakistan’s e-commerce industry developed eighty-four per cent during the COVID-19 pandemic and being amongst the quickest improving worldwide.

Founder and CEO of Dukan Mr Monis Rahman told that rehearsing his dedication to raising domestic small businesses. Dukan’s aim is to allow anyone with a mobile phone to trade online in under one minute. Our collaboration with Extreme Commerce will assist to advance this mission by enhancing our platform with high-standard e-commerce coaching for domestic sellers.

Similarly, Mr. Sunny Ali Extreme Commerce’s founder and CEO described that it is encouraging to see the exposure of domestic platforms like Dukan.pk to support sellers approach their customers. We are pleasing to partner with the leader in this space.

GrocerApp increases $5.2 Million in Series A Financing

The Lahore-located online grocery network GrocerApp initiated that it has increased $5.2 million in a Series A financing round took by the Dubai-based funding company Hayaat Global. It had increased $1 million in September 2020.

The current investment round contained the New York-founded Millville Opportunities finance the Jabbar Internet Group, the Middle Eastern capitalists Wamda Capital and China’s Haitou Global, Nama Ventures and Pakistan’s Lean Bricks and Walled City Company and some angel capitalists containing Jon Puckhaber, Ziyad Alami, Ziyad Alami, and Asif Keshodia.

Ahmad Saeed, Hassaan Sadiq, and Rai Bilal all have established in 2016. GrocerApp is a network that empowers consumers in Pakistan to require groceries through its web and mobile phone application frequently for same-day suppliers.

Know More about recently funded Pakistani Startups

The Chairman of Hayaat Global Muhammad Ikhlaq told that GrocerApp’s group is battle-hardened as it has been in the grocery part for more than four years and understands the onerous grocery upright well. The members of the team have ascended tasks with nominal relative financing keeping momentum with participants and revealing the capability to flourish without depending merely on cash burn.

He further said that we are stimulated to back this experienced team and the capital injection will launch GrocerApp into a ruling market status.

Ahmed Saeed GrocerApp’s co-founder and CEO said Pakistan Tech News that after the recent financing round, the inception plans to remain developing across these four cities and also establish its communication in Karachi by the end of the third quarter this year.

GrocerApp has raised by 300% in intervals of monthly orders and income within nine months and it’s calculable earning now surpassed $15 Million.

One of its co-founders described that one-fourth of GrocerApp marketing now enters from the twin cities where it initiated about nine months ago.

Ahmed Saeed thinks their model of reserving list at large accomplishment centers and packaging multiple orders assemble for delivery is more maintainable with much better unit economics than now bossiness in developing markets.

He elaborated that we give the largest variety at the best affordable prices. That is our tone to the user. The most of the users that we are assisting use GrocerApp to get the grocery for a whole month or reserve it up every week. Whenever, a user places an order by 3 PM. they would get it on the same day in many cases and they are very delighted with that. He further said that their average order size is $16.

GrocerApp initiated its operations in Lahore and then embellished them to Islamabad and Rawalpindi in the later part of 2020. Now, it has also initiated working in Faisalabad.

For its B2B eCommerce Marketplace, Pakistan’s Jugnu Increases $3.2 Million

Karachi-based B2B eCommerce marketplace Jugnu and its origin company Saleflo have increased $3.2 Million from Systems Limited and a Lahore-located guiding global technology and trade approach outsourcing services supplier. Some angel capitalist also joined in the deal. Systems developed a finance of three million dollars in trade for a twenty per cent share in the company.

Salesflo had established in 2015 as a software company that made the country’s first cloud-based deals and assortment platform for FMCGs. It was initiated by Ahsan Muhammad Khan, Yasir Suleman Memon, Syed Khurram Haider, and Ahsan Muhammad Khan who altogether had tens of years of expertise in performing in the FMCG industry of Pakistan. The platform has functioned with forty project FMCGs, pharmaceutical, and allocation companies and supporting their access over three lacks distributor across the nation through its software.

 

After understanding from its expertise of working with both FMCGs and distributors, Salesflo initiated Jugnu in 2020 and equipping small grocery distributors in the country to obtain a checklist for their stores. Currently available in Lahore, Jugnu works with thousands of grocery store owners by its mobile phone application and accomplishment centres and giving next-day conveyance for all their purchases. The inception plans to utilize the latest finances to further enlarge Jugnu. It is in a highly combative space with an association such as Bazaar, Retailo, and Tajir, who have increased tens of millions of dollars, also present in it.

With Network, Jugnu has a found a tactical alliance that can open many opportunities for it. It is one of the guiding technology players in the country with a market limit of over four hundred thirty million dollars. Systems also grants and use OneLoad, a fintech that empowers retailers to gain money by trading digital products and also contacting mobile top-ups and payments of utility bills. The fintech previously has over one lacks dealers who avail its services so there are a lot of alliances for Systems. Sharoon Saleem Salesflo and Jugnu’s co-founder said Pakistan Tech News.

A Systems spokesman mentioning on the finance elaborated that it is at increasing their existence in the digital retail environment of Pakistan .they will give them availability to potential teamwork in technologies and approach to digital plotting of the retail universe.

 

Pakistan’s Dawaai Increase $8.5 Million to Develop its Online Pharmacy and Healthcare System

Karachi Head-office online pharmacy launch Dawaai has increased eight-point five million dollars in a round guided by five hundred starters and using its total financing to date to ten-point five million dollars. The round is contained of value and debt and involving the association of keep going investor Sarmayacar and two family offices. The starter has talked to Pakistan Tech News that right accounts for an outstanding majority of the round. The bargain also contained subordinates with some capitalists partially exiting the organization and making some really good remits. Dawaai did not allocate the exact malfunction but described to us that the subordinate was a very small part of the deal.

Established in early 2014 by Furquan Kidwai, Dawaai sales medicines, personal care items, and medical gadgets to individuals and pharmacies across the country through its website and mobile-installed platform. It operates exactly with the pharmaceutical companies and large suppliers to sell genuine medicines at what it speaks are the affordable possible prices. The consumers can take the medicines by just uploading their instructions or by attaching them physically to the transport utilizing look on the platform. To suggest medicines, a customer must upload an instruction to absolute the order.

Dawaai affirms to have worked eleven million people in the country have utilized its website site and applications, in the last seven years. A large number of these customers have bought medicines using Dawaai’s platform. The health-tech presently transported medicines in ninety-eight cities through different fulfillment centers across the country. In some parts of the country. It also has its own nimble through which it is capable to provide two-hour delivery in specific areas of such as Karachi and Lahore.

The starter told that it has raised its earnings by three hundred and fifty percent in the last twelve months. Dawaai’s group has also increased from fifteen employees about two years ago to two hundred and fifty people right now. It has joined members to all the functions of the organization and designs to continue to recruit more.

In inclusion to medicines and medical gadgets, Dawaai’s platform now capable customers to discuss doctors online, get health assistance at home and book lab tests.

The creator and CEO of Dawaai, Furquan Kidwai that a large number of users who require medicines from their platform are incurable victims. They want doctor meetings and lab tests on regularly and to provide them better. We have been including all these communications to Dawaai and would resume adding more. It is very motivating to observe that telecommunications provided by Dawaai have improved to tens of thousands of monthly meetings in no time.

Furqan added that some of the doctors who utilize Dawaai to provide meetings have increased their income two times.

In a statement, commenting on the round, he declared, “We are exceptional-focused on our objective to use healthcare approachable and adjustable for the people of Pakistan and extensive South Asia. The first step in obtaining that is establishing the losing pharmaceutical supply network foundation in the markets we work in and sharpening the next age of talent to use our economies forward. This funding is empowering us to move forward on our journey to create the lives of people better across the length and breadth of Pakistan with the cheapest healthcare version for all Pakistanis.

The Managing Partner at five hundred initiations Tony Wang said that  Furquan and his company have initiated Dawaai not only as of the foremost digital health system in Pakistan but as an explorer tech company in a developing initiation ecosystem, in recent years. We are excited to keep to back Dawaai as it assists the approach to healthcare to millions of people.

Dawaai aims to make the investment to continue establishing a pharmaceutical supply network foundation in Pakistan and further grow its technology to improve the business.

 

For growing its trucking platform in Pakistan & Gulf, Trukkin raises $7 million in Series A

Dubai main office trucking platform Trukkin has increased seven million dollars in a sequence A round direct by Saudi-based Emkan Capital. It declared in a statement today. Impact forty-six, Taya Group and other ‘tactical capitalists’ also connected the round. The startup had already enhanced three-point five million dollars in May 2019.

It was established in 2017 by Jarnardan Dalmia. Trukkin links shippers with truckers in twelve countries across the region with offices in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan. As per its website, the initiations has over two thousand transporters and ten thousand drivers in its system who have carried more than fifty thousand shipments, to date. It declares to have raised three times since the arrival of the pandemic.

The company that initiated with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi enlarged to Pakistan in August 2020 embellishing the first provisional trucking marketplace to have established here. Since then, Egypt’s Trella has also enlarged to Pakistan with at least six domestically players also initiating the same marketplaces.

Trukkin stated that it is also establishing fintech emulsion for remittances, insurance, and monetary services to support the transporters and drivers who operate with them. The founder and CEO of Trukkin Janardan Dalmia added that they are moving on digitizing the remittances for truck operators. In this way, they can obtain instant remittance faster and utilize them easily, without having to bargain with cash.

He described the investment. I am very pleased with the team and the development. We have attained over the course of the last year as we enlarged into Pakistan and developed returns despite the difficult environment showed by Covid. We are thrilled to near the round with strategic capitalists like Emkan Capital and Impact forty-six. It verified our vision of making a world-class regional accumulation platform to capable administrative for the carriers and shippers.

We determine extensive growth potential in the administrative sectors in the MENA region. The size of the market is noticeable at over fifty billion dollars. Presently, domestic disintegrated players control the market in the region. He added, we are going to be an enabler that makes this disintegrated market all together on a merged and world-class platform to display combined development.

General Partner at Emkan Capital described that Trukkin has shown extraordinarily effective utilize of capital. We are very inspired with what they have been capable to attain in such a short time frame. Its primary team with over two hundred years of affiliated industry experience have shown their experience in not only sailing but navigating development during the pandemic. We focus forward to helping Trukkin. In assisting hundreds of combined users and individual shippers as they assertively see for development and expansion in reach, potentiality and trade volume.

The Managing Partner at Impact forty-six stated, observing into Saudi Arabia’s geopolitics location, it shows a large number of domestically and local traffic of strategies movement considering the smashed industry that still works in a normal way and requiring the inventive solution. Trukkin platform is in the right place to control the business and simplify the logistics network with its digital services. Trukkin performs a significant role in empowering a group of independent truck drivers to enhance their capability at a lower price to customers.

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