ModulusTech and the house that fits on a truck
Three NED graduates set out to shelter refugees with a flat pack home. The customers who actually paid were schools, farms, a clinic and, eventually, a net zero neighbourhood in Karachi.
Startups
How young companies found their customers, their money and their footing.
16 stories
Saraaf wants to be the exchange for Central Asia's stone, cotton and ore
A Karachi onyx exporter is trying to become a sourcing platform for the whole region. Television gave it a record valuation. Delivering the money, and the app, has proved harder.
Retailo raised $60 million to sell to corner shops in three countries. It kept one
Three Careem alumni launched a B2B marketplace in Karachi in 2020, raised faster than any Saudi seed before it, and by 2023 had pulled back to Riyadh.
How BridgeLinx raised Pakistan's biggest seed round in nine months, and what came after
Four founders, a cement factory's trucking problem and a $10 million cheque co led by 20VC. Five years on, the company is still private, still in Lahore and much quieter.
How Trukkr went from matching trucks to lending to them
A Karachi marketplace for freight found that its customers' real shortage was working capital, raised $6.4 million, and got a licence to fix it.
KalPay: the Pakistani lender that chose profit before scale
A Shariah aligned buy now pay later service launched into a cash economy just as borrowing costs soared. It survived by raising little, working with merchants and lending for school fees.
Linkstar gave Pakistan's freelancers a free website, then bought a Dubai jobs board
Three childhood friends from Karachi raised SOSV money on a subscription pitch, claimed 50,000 users and acquired Oliv. By 2025 the original platform appears to have closed.
How a Karachi workshop found buyers for a two thousand dollar bionic arm
Bioniks has no venture round to its name. It grew on sales, donors, government orders and prizes, and in 2026 it is leaning on an oil company to reach patients who cannot pay.
The khata app that became a lender
CreditBook gave Pakistan's shopkeepers a free digital ledger, raised $12.5 million in a year, and then spent the next four turning the data into loans.
Plouton AI and the second act of a Karachi fintech pair
Two Habib University graduates spent four years trying to get young Pakistanis to buy mutual funds. Now they sell finance teams a robot that works the browser for them.
How ABHI went from a salary advance app to owning a bank
Founded in Karachi in 2021, ABHI sold early pay as an employee benefit, raised a Series A at a $90 million valuation, issued Pakistan's first fintech sukuk and bought a microfinance bank.
How EduFi turned a tuition bill into a monthly instalment
Pakistan had no student loan product to speak of. EduFi built one by paying colleges directly, underwriting families itself and raising the country's largest pre seed round.
How a volunteer science charity in Lahore caught the attention of Nature
WinSci Pakistan has no paid staff that it discloses and runs on interns, webinars and borrowed classrooms. In 2025 it won US$50,000 and a global award.
Dastgyr: the kiryana app that raised a record and then had to shrink
Launched in a lockdown with $300,000, Dastgyr raised more than $40 million in two years. The retailers it chased ordered less when inflation bit, and most of the staff went.
The committee that moved into an app
Oraan took a savings habit that rotates billions of dollars in cash through Pakistani households and gave it a treasury desk, a vetting process and, lately, gold.
How Bazaar went from a Karachi kiryana app to Pakistan's best funded startup
Four rounds in 21 months, a free ledger that pulled in millions of shops, and a 2025 payments acquisition. Bazaar's route to the top of Pakistan's funding table.