NayaPay, a local financial platform, announced on Thursday that it had raised $13 million in early-stage funding.
The seed round was headed by Zayn Capital, MSA Novo, and Graph Ventures of Silicon Valley, according to CEO Danish Lakhani.Among the investors were Saison Capital, Waleed Saigol’s Maple Leaf Capital, and Warren Hogarth, CEO of Empower Finance. The Lakson Group also made a significant investment.
An inspection by the State Bank of Pakistan and a year-long pilot programme led to NayaPay’s commercial certification last year (SBP). The fintech hopes to reach Pakistan’s 50 million unbanked individuals. The chat-based payments service began with students and freelancers. In a statement, NayaPay said it has created a chat-based super app aimed at students and freelancers, and is constructing a SaaS platform for SMBs called NayaPay Arc.
As with platforms like Square Cash/Square, WeChat Pay, AliPay and Venmo, NayaPay’s platform strategy will harness network effects between consumers and businesses. Mr. Lakhani added: “NayaPay Arc will provide entrepreneurs and small company owners with universal payments acceptance and a range of business financial management solutions.
“The tools are meant to help business owners track cash flow, pay suppliers, and increase sales. We want them to focus on growth while we handle the rest. We believe that empowering small enterprises with technology may alter the Pakistani economy.”
“Pakistani fintechs have the advantage of learning from peers and putting more informed strategic bets,” said Faisal Aftab, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Zayn Capital Frontier.
Truck, based in Karachi, Pakistan, earned $13 million in preliminary capital earlier this month, the largest seed round for a logistics firm in the MENA area. 81 agreements drew a massive $350 million, rounding off a remarkable year for the South Asian economy that struggles with foreign exchange influx. The sum raised was 5x that of 2020, i.e. $65 million.
A$85M, B$30M, and Tajir ($17M) were the three biggest deals in 2021.
