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.
Bazaar Technologies started in June 2020 with a pandemic, two friends and a $1.3 million pre seed round. Hamza Jawaid, then a McKinsey consultant in Dubai, and Saad Jangda, a product manager at Careem, had been at middle school together in Karachi. Indus Valley Capital led the round and Alter Global made its first Pakistani investment, MENAbytes reported.
The customers were kiryana stores, the small grocers that dominate Pakistani retail. Bazaar's app let them order stock at fixed prices and have it delivered. By January 2021 the company said it served more than 10,000 retailers in Karachi and raised a $6.5 million seed round co led by Global Founders Capital and Indus Valley Capital, with Wavemaker Partners and others joining, according to Profit by Pakistan Today.
The ledger that did the marketing
The real growth engine was Easy Khata, a free bookkeeping app launched in early 2021. KrAsia reported more than 100,000 active merchants in 400 cities and towns within about a month. The app ran everywhere, while delivery ran only in Karachi and Lahore, so Bazaar could see demand before it built a warehouse. By August 2021, when Defy Partners and Wavemaker led a $30 million Series A that TechCrunch called the largest in Pakistan, the company had served more than 750,000 merchants with 90 per cent retention. A Forbes profile from April 2021 put the team at more than 300 employees.
Credit came next. Bazaar tested a buy now, pay later product with a third party, then built lending in house, so that ordering, credit, delivery and cash collection sat on one network. In March 2022 Tiger Global and Dragoneer co led a $70 million Series B. TechCrunch reported that Easy Khata had 2.4 million registered businesses across 500 cities, the marketplace was in 21 towns and cities with a dozen fulfilment facilities, and total funding had passed $100 million. Harvard Business School published a case study on the company that month, according to Bazaar's own newsroom.
Widening the aisle
After 2022 the funding announcements stopped and the product launches continued. Bazaar Industrial, a raw material sourcing platform for manufacturers, arrived in February 2023, Dawn reported, with the company then in more than 50 cities. Endeavor named the founders its first Pakistani entrepreneurs in 2023 and invested from its Catalyst fund. In 2024 Bazaar moved into direct to consumer sales and launched Bazaar Pro, a procurement service for offices and restaurants, according to a sponsored ProPakistani article from September 2024. The company's website now sells groceries and office supplies to households and businesses across more than 30 categories.
Buying the rails
The decisive step was payments. In March 2025 the Competition Commission of Pakistan approved Bazaar's purchase of a 100 per cent stake in Wemsol, the company behind the Keenu brand, Digital Pakistan reported. The deal closed in July 2025. Keenu is licensed by the State Bank of Pakistan as an electronic money institution, accepts cards, QR and Raast payments, and says it serves more than 25,000 businesses. Nukta, citing Bloomberg, said its merchant coverage spanned more than 150 cities. The price was not disclosed.
Jawaid told Bloomberg that the company had a very strong balance sheet, was not raising money and expected profitability in the coming quarters. Bloomberg described Bazaar as Pakistan's best funded startup, with $100 million raised across its two largest rounds. The company's own figures are self reported and the latest merchant counts date from 2022, so how much of that 2.4 million ledger base buys through Bazaar today is unknown. No new funding round has been verifiably reported since 2022, and we found no dated news from 2026.
