Pakistan Startup Fund to start receiving applications from March: Dr Umar Saif

The Pakistan Startup Fund (PSF), launched to facilitate startup investment, will commence accepting funding applications from March onwards.

The development was shared by Dr Umar Saif, Caretaker Minister of IT & Telecom, and Science & Technology, in a post on social media on Wednesday.

“Pakistan Startup Fund – designed to facilitate Pakistani startups to close early stage VC funding round – will start accepting funding applications in March,” he said.

Under the PSF, launched just days ago by the caretaker minister, the government will invest up to Rs2 billion a year in the startup sector.

“The PSF is designed to help a startup raise its first external investment,” Dr Saif had said during the launch of PSF.

Last year in October, Dr Saif, in a conversation with Business Recorder on the sidelines of GITEX GLOBAL 2023, said the caretaker government is establishing a ‘Pakistan Startup Fund’, using revenue from IGNITE – which in turn is funded by a portion of the federal government’s telecom receipts.

“We will use IGNITE, which gets a portion of the telecom revenue and a few billion rupees go into it every year,” Dr Saif had told Business Recorder at the Dubai World Trade Centre.

“This funding will be converted into a ‘Pakistan Startup Fund’.”

Dr Saif back then said the government would then become the “last check of equity-free capital in a venture capital round”.

What is PSF?

The PSF is structured as an equity-free capital to help close a VC (Venture Capital) round for a startup.

“If you are a startup in Pakistan and a foreign VC is evaluating your startup for a $1 million investment, the VC only needs to invest $700,000 — the Pakistan Startup Fund will give you a grant of $300,000 to help close the round,” Dr Saif had said while explaining the PSF.

“We won’t take any equity/shares in your startup or a board position etc.

“PSF is designed to lower the risk for international investors to invest in Pakistani startups; once we have written you a cheque, we won’t hassle you at all .. betting on you and your VC investors to drive your success,” he added.