Pakistan's B2B ecommerce marketplace, Bazaar, raised $6.5 million in one of the largest seed rounds in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Bazaar becomes one of the best funded startups in Pakistan, as its total raise accumulates to $7.8 million after this round.
Berlin-based Global Founders Capital and Pakistan-based VC Indus Valley Capital co-led this seed round; this will be Global Founders Capital's first investment in Pakistan. This seed round was reported to be the second largest round ever raised by a startup in the MENA region and the largest in Pakistan, according to MENAbytes data.
It is also important to note that Bazaar also has a diverse mix of leading global and regional institutional and angel investors in addition to its lead investors.
Launched only eight months ago, Bazaar hopes to digitize traditional retail in Pakistan. It was founded by Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda as a mobile-based ecommerce marketplace, which allows neighborhood mom-and-pop grocery stores (kiryana stores) owners access to inventory from manufacturers, wholesalers, and suppliers.
The Bazaar app currently houses over 500 SKUs of branded and unbranded products with option of a free next-day delivery. Moreover, Bazaar was also able to beat its own initial target of serving 800 Karachi retailers by the end of 2020 and was able to close the year with over 10,000 retailers.
Hamza Jawaid, Bazaar Co-founder and a former McKinsey consultant, also explains that Bazaar has incredible opportunities to empower micro-businesses through technology in Pakistan, which has emerged as the fifth largest country in the world with rising digital adoption. "Over 80% of our customers own and operate smartphones, yet their way of running business has not changed, until now. By bringing them online, we can meaningfully improve their business and their lives, freeing up time to focus on the most important tasks, eventually enabling greater returns,” he adds.
Moreover, Bazaar's Co-founder Saad Jangda, who was a Product Manager at Careem formerly, also comments that “at Bazaar, we believe that building the technology layer for traditional commerce is a massive opportunity. With the sheer size of the Pakistani market, a new narrative and spotlight on our ecosystem and an abundance of Pakistanis moving back home, we finally have all the right fundamentals to build massive tech institutions."
In addition to Bazaar's mobile-based marketplace, it has some other products in the pipeline as well. The startup hopes to use these new funds to expand its teams and footprint across Pakistan. Global Founders Capital and Indus Valley Capital are also looking forward to strengthen their partnership with Bazaar to revolutionize Pakistan's $150 billion retail industry.