Clicky, a Lahore-based fashion e-commerce site, has raised $2.4 million in a pre-Series A investment.
Early-stage investors from the UAE and Pakistan led the round, including Tricap Investments, Asif Keshodia, CSHL and a few more UAE angel investors.
The current investment adds to the startup’s prior $700,000 financing in December 2020.
Muhammad Khalid and Syed Shahzad founded Clicky in 2016. The firm has received funding from Fatima Ventures and Souq (bought by Amazon in 2017).
According to the firm, their own labels and curated fashion merchants have helped them increase their business four times in less than a year. Clicky wants to scale these labels by working closely with manufacturers and designers.
Clicky will be adding 3000-5000 new SKUs every month to tap into Pakistan’s expanding fashion sector.
An earlier investment helped the business establish up and strengthen its fulfilment centres across Pakistan. Clicky now boasts one of the country’s largest warehouse fulfilment centres at 25,000 sq ft.
“Our investors have showed enormous trust in us and the Pakistani e-commerce scene,” Khalid and Shahzad agreed. We are thrilled to support local manufacturers for our private labels and introduce international names to give our consumers with a high-quality experience.
“We feel that quick fashion has become ultra-fast fashion. Hence, we want to provide local producers with the required technology and working resources to fully realise this huge potential.”
Founder and former CFO of Souq.com, Asif Keshodia, said, “The Clicky team has demonstrated that they have the passion and endurance essential to develop a major e-commerce destination for fashion and clothing in Pakistan.”
Clicky’s supply chain and sourcing approach, which is largely local, is a selling factor for Keshodia.
Multi-million dollar investments from both local and foreign investors ushered in a new era for Pakistani entrepreneurs in 2021.
Udhaar Book, a Karachi-based supplier of cashflow management services, raised $6 million last month.
According to statistics provided by Alpha Beta Core (ABCore), a Karachi-based early-stage tech investment business, Pakistani companies raised over $305 million in the first nine months of the current year.
Experts estimate the sum is nearly 1.5 times larger than the preceding six years combined, indicating development potential.