Aleena Nadeem is the founder and chief executive of EduFi, a Lahore company that pays a student's university tuition directly to the college and lets the family repay in monthly instalments. It is a study now, pay later business, and it rests on a simple observation: in Pakistan the gap between school and university is a financing gap as much as an academic one.
Her own training was in credit rather than education. She graduated from MIT in 2016, worked in the credit division at Goldman Sachs in London, and then moved to Ventura Capital, before going home to incorporate EduFi in 2021. Since then the company has won a lending licence, raised what Forbes called the largest pre seed round in Pakistani startup history, and carried its name to Riyadh and Muscat.
EduFi is still young. It began disbursing loans only in 2024, and the tests that will decide whether it becomes a lasting lender, repayment across a full degree and through a downturn, are mostly ahead of it. What is on the public record is an unusually fast start, much of it in the company's own words, and this profile attributes those words where they appear.
A classroom on auctions, risk and credit
Nadeem's route into lending ran through a classroom. According to MIT News, which profiled her on 27 March 2025, she attended a British international high school where nobody had previously been admitted to an Ivy League university. At MIT she took classes on auctions, risk and credit, and graduated in 2016. Forbes reports that she interned at McKinsey while a student, and says she has been involved in education issues since high school.
After graduation she joined the credit division at Goldman Sachs in London, where, EduFi says, she spent three years. She later moved to Ventura Capital, a late stage technology fund, where EduFi's team page says she was its first female and youngest principal partner and led deals including Paytm and Upgrade. These are the company's claims, and the magazine has not checked them with the fund. It is a career built on pricing risk, and it helps to explain what she built: a lender designed around underwriting rather than a school fees platform with a loan attached.
The students who fell away at the university gate
The problem she went home to solve was one she had seen up close. TechCrunch reported in November 2023 that she had worked with Progressive Education Network, a Pakistani nonprofit that provides free schooling, and had watched students who could manage school fees fall away when university bills arrived. She told the site that there is a sharp drop in those who are able to achieve a higher college education.
MIT News put a figure on it, citing ICEF: only about 13 percent of Pakistani students attend college. TechCrunch added that Pakistan has no student loan category at all. Students borrow through personal loans, which it described as high in interest and slow, and a dental or medical student can face more than $8,000 upfront.
That is a lending story more than a scholarship story. A family may lack the salary slip, collateral or banking history that a conventional lender looks for, and a tuition bill arrives as a single lump sum. EduFi's bet is that it can become a monthly payment.
Paying the college directly
EduFi was incorporated in 2021. Applicants, students or parents, submit proof of finances such as 12 months of bank statements or evidence of income from a salary, a small business or freelance work. An AI based credit model scores them, MIT News reported, and also draws on grades and payment history supplied by partner colleges. After approval EduFi pays the college's bank directly. In Pakistan the parent is usually the primary borrower, no collateral is required, and a service fee of 1.4 percent is added to the monthly payment.
TechCrunch reported that the credit model was tested during an 18 month beta against 80,000 consumer loans made by banks. The company says approved loans can reach a college within 48 hours, against three to four weeks for a bank, a comparison that is the company's own. Nadeem's explanation of why families struggled to borrow elsewhere was blunt.
“Most students and their families have to get personal loans from standard banks, but that requires them to open a bank account, which could take two months.”
A licence, and the first loans
When TechCrunch wrote in November 2023, EduFi had approval in principle from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, with the licence still to be granted. MIT News reported that the company received its non banking finance licence in February 2024 and began disbursing loans that year. By its own account it lent more than half a million dollars in its first six months, with fewer than one in 10,000 loans going unpaid. Those are early figures from a young book, and they say more about the speed of the launch than about how the loans will perform over time.
“We are the first movers in student lending and currently hold the largest student loan portfolio in the country.”
Still, the licence mattered. It moved EduFi from a promising idea to a regulated lender able to put its own money to work, and it gave the college partnerships the company was courting something to stand on. In 2023 TechCrunch counted 15 university partners, giving access to about 200,000 students. By the time Forbes named her to its list in 2024, the company said it worked with 27 Pakistani colleges.
The largest pre seed in the country's history
On 9 November 2023 EduFi announced a $6.1 million pre seed round led by Zayn VC, with Palm Drive Capital, Deem Ventures, Q Business and angel investors taking part. Faisal Aftab of Zayn called it a significant step towards financial inclusion for middle and low income families. The money was to reach more customers, improve the platform, expand to neighbouring countries and launch products including student credit cards. Forbes called it the largest pre seed in Pakistani startup history.
TechCrunch described the company as Singapore based, though EduFi's own materials place it in Lahore, with offices now listed in Riyadh and Muscat. Its board, as the company presents it, includes Faisal Aftab of Zayn and Salman Akhtar of Techlogix, founder of the Pakistani credit scoring company AdalFi.
In May 2024 Nadeem was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in the finance and venture capital category.
From Shark Tank to Riyadh
Her profile grew on television as well. Nadeem appeared as a shark on the first season of Shark Tank Pakistan, which premiered on Green Entertainment in November 2024. At LEAP 2025 in Riyadh, from 9 to 12 February, EduFi won the Rocket Fuel Pitch Competition and its $250,000 first prize, beating more than 2,000 rivals, Arab News reported.
The Gulf has since become part of the plan. MIT News said EduFi intended to expand into Saudi Arabia in 2025 and eventually lend across the Middle East. In December 2025 EduFi was selected for Batch 10 of the Sanabil Accelerator by 500 Global in Riyadh, one of nine startups chosen from more than 735 applicants, and in 2026 the company's own announcements have placed it in Oman as well as Pakistan.
The SoFi of Pakistan, and of more
Nadeem has been open about the model she has in mind.
“EduFi is modeled after SoFi in San Francisco. I'm trying to build the SoFi of Pakistan and the Middle East. But it's really a combination of SoFi and Grameen Bank.”
The combination is the interesting part. SoFi began as a student loan business and grew into a broader financial services company; Grameen Bank is the best known example of lending to people the formal system overlooks. EduFi wants to be both a commercial lender and an instrument of access. Whether those two aims stay aligned as it grows is the question that will define its next few years.
The immediate tests are practical. The company has to show that its low loss rate holds as the book ages, that colleges keep sending it students, and that expansion into Saudi Arabia and Oman does not stretch a small team too thin.
