Start-Ups Hub Pakistan

02/11/2021

Another Pakistani Start-Up that has over 3,000 women's and children's clothing items have raised 1.7 million USD in funding.

Complete story:

It aims to "eliminate the friction small-scale sellers face in sourcing products, arranging delivery and collecting payment".

21/10/2021

Rider, a tech-led last-mile delivery partner for e-commerce retailers, secured $2.3 million in a seed round led by the venture capital firm, Global Founders Capital, Fatima Gobi Ventures, and the Asian Development Bank. TPL E-Ventures and Transhold also participated, a statement said on Wednesday.

Karachi-based B2B2C service was launched in 2019 by Salman Allana, who was previously head of strategy and business development at UPS Pakistan and assistant vice president at the Citi Bank.

Copied from:

KARACHI: Rider, a tech-led last mile delivery partner for e-commerce retailers, has raised $2.3 million in a seed round led by the venture capital firm, Global Founders Capital, Fatima Gobi Ventures and the Asian Development Bank. TPL E-Ventures and Transhold also participated, a statement said on W...

21/01/2021

Federal Minister Shafqat Mehmood on Wednesday announced measures taken by the incumbent government on civil reforms.

In his election campaign, the PTI chief had pledged to bring about wide-ranging reforms in the system and introduce a system of internal accountability to encourage competent officials and w**d out inefficient people.

The Civil Service has seen many reforms and the incumbent government’s efforts will be another step to transform the service, ensuring that the best officers reach the top slots who were dedicated to service.

Mehmood said the government has introduced reforms in promotion, premature retirement, efficiency and discipline, appointment in MP scale, rotation; and strength of Pakistan Administrative Service.

A quick look at the reforms:

Promotion: this will depend on a process involving a 40% share of Annual Confidential Reports, 30% of training, and 30% from board evaluation. The promotion of an official facing a reference will be deferred.

Premature retirement: Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) chairman will decide the cases from BS-20 while the decisions from scales 17 to 19 will be taken by the secretary and up to 16th scale by a senior joint secretary.

Three below average or average ACRs can serve a ground for premature retirement of an official while the plea bargain option availed by an official can also provide ground for retirement.

Amendments in Efficiency and Discipline rules:An inquiry committee will give its decision in 60 days, and the authority will take the decision of punishment in 30 days.

Appointment in MP scale: The period has been increased from two to three years, and it can be further extended. A post on the MP scale can be publicised and a suitable person can also be picked from the market.

Rotation: No officer can stay in provinces beyond 10 years. The promotion has also been linked to a rotation policy.

Pakistan Administrative Service: the strength has also been decreased.

21/01/2021

Pakistan recorded a current account deficit of $662 million in December, after remaining in surplus for the last five months, mostly on the back of higher imports, the central bank data showed on Wednesday.

The country posted a current account surplus of $513 million in November, while it registered a small deficit of $287 million in December 2019.

Cumulatively, during the six months of the current fiscal year, the current account remained in surplus, and stood at $1.131 billion, compared with a deficit of $2.032 billion in the same period of last fiscal year.

“Exports and remittances continued to grow steadily in December 2020 compared to last year. Imports of some essential food items as well as growth-enhancing capital goods, oil and industrial raw materials also rose on the back of the domestic economic recovery,” the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said in a tweet. Imports rose 32 percent year-on-year to $5.019 billion in December. Exports, however, increased 6.78 percent to $2.251 billion. The economic activity is gaining momentum, which is evident from the fact that the large-scale manufacturing (LSM) index grew 14.45 percent in November, while cumulatively, the index picked up 7.4 percent year-on-year in the five months of the current fiscal year.

The LSM index is expected to remain upbeat owing to accelerating manufacturing operations, improvement in aggregate demand and new investments.

Recent figures on the Temporary Economic Refinance Facility (TERF) also showed the investment and the economic activities recovered from coronavirus-induced slump.

Analysts said monthly import bill would swell going forward but overall the current account was unlikely to exceed 0.8 percent of GDP this fiscal year.

20/01/2021

Durshal a KPITB’s Project that envisaged to anchor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s digital transformation is inviting application for its next cohort for Peshawar, Swat, Mardan, and Swabi.

They provide the following benefits:

a monthly stipend of Rs. 30,000/- for the first 3 months
6-months intensive program keeping in view the requirements of local startups
Networking Opportunities
Resident Entrepreneurship
Seed money up to Rs. 12 Million per cohort and connecting with the other investors and grants
Opportunity to attend workshops and boot camps

Link to apply: https://www.durshal.com/apply
Last date to apply: January 31, 2021
For more details: https://www.durshal.com/contact

Got something to say or need to pick our brains on that great idea you just had? Get in touch via email and we will get back to you pronto!

16/01/2021

AFINITI, an artificial intelligence company, is based in Washington DC, but is rooted in Pakistan through its founder and CEO Zia Chishti.

Founded in 2006, Afiniti uses AI to help companies become efficient. They pair customers with employees by predicting interpersonal behaviour. The company recently came into the spotlight after it filed for an IPO. Previously, it lay low; instead of PR, it amassed customers.

According to VentureBeat, Afiniti is valued at $1.6 billion. When VentureBeat spoke to Chishti, he said he couldn't comment on the company's financials.

Chishti is an accomplished entrepreneur. He was previously co-founder and CEO of Align Technology, a company which is currently valued at almost $10 billion.

Afiniti's board features veterans in the field. Chishti has gathered names like former Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenfeld, former US Treasury secretary John Snow, and fomer Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar. The company has also raised more than $100 million in funding.

Afiniti claims companies that use their technology for revenue generation see an average revenue lift of four to six per cent. Afiniti's confidence in their claims can be seen from the fact that they operate on margins – instead of paying a fixed fee, clients pay a percentage of additional revenue they make through Afiniti.

According to Afiniti's website, T-Mobile has earned an additional $70 million in funding by using Afiniti's pairing technology.

To make its pairings, Afiniti uses information from up to 100 databases. These databases include information such as income, demography and informational from social networks. So, when a customer calls into a call centre, their phone number is run through these databases. The call is then transferred to an agent who is determined to be most effective to handle calls from the customer with those characteristics.

“It’s a little overwhelming, sometimes scary, to know how much information can be accumulated about you,” said Larry Babbio, an Afiniti board member while speaking to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. But, he added, the trade-off is a better consumer experience.

16/01/2021

According to Google, Zahid Hussain is the first person in the world who has made this type of Searchable Hadees project. He is an IT Consultant by profession and his keen interest in religion compelled him to carry out this extensive research work single handedly and took him around five years to come up with this amazing and easy to use Search Engine Application for holy Quran and holy Hadees.

For the ease of the users and readers, he has made the application in such a way that, not even an Hadees or topic, but even a single word from whole Sahih Bukhari can be searched and within a blink of an eye, it gives you all the references from the Holy Book.

Owing to the growing popularity of the Quran Search Engine, Zahid Hussain has been invited to several TV channels during prime time and morning shows, as well as some socio-political talk shows to promote his work and let the common man know about his work.

Apart from Quran and Hadees Search Engine, Zahid Hussain is currently working on Voice recognition mobile app for Quran and Hadees (A huge project with over 100,000 references of Hadith), Multi Translated version of Holy Quran in Multi languages, including Chinese, Dutch, French, Tamil and Malay. Keep praying for us.

His app, Islam 360, World's first Quran and Hadith searchable application just crossed over 5 Million+ downloads on Playstore.

14/01/2021

This achievement for Pakistan was through chitral women’s handicraft Center team and kalash artisans, leaded by Karishma Ali, who also got listed by Forbes in "Forbes 30 under 30, 2019".

Credits: Chitral women's handicraft centre

13/01/2021

Four days after Tesla CEO Elon Musk prompted Twitter followers to “use Signal,” a reference to the Signal encrypted messaging app funded by a nonprofit organization, investors pushed even higher the price of Signal Advance, a small component manufacturer whose stock trades over the counter.

During Monday’s trading session, the stock rose 438% and reached a high of $70.85, up from a closing price of 60 cents on Jan. 6, a day before Musk’s tweet. The stock saw its highest trading volume since going public in 2014 on Monday; more than 2 million shares changed hands, while on Jan. 4, not a single share of the stock was traded. Signal Advance, which reported receiving no revenue in 2015 and 2016, is now worth more than $3 billion.

The buying fever that began soon after Musk’s remark illustrates an occasional issue in public markets of people investing in the wrong companies by mistake.

A similar case played out in 2019 as some people bought shares of Zoom Technologies, whose ticker symbol was ZOOM but was not the trendy video-calling service Zoom Video Communications, which trades under the symbol ZM. Last year the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stopped trading of Zoom Technologies, partly because of confusion over its connection with Zoom Video.

Signal Advance’s sole full-time employee, Chris Hymel, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

For many years Musk’s online utterances have attracted considerable attention. Last week Musk’s profile reached new heights as he became the wealthiest person in the world and Tesla’s market capitalization exceeded that of Facebook.

On Sunday Musk said on Twitter that he would give money to support Signal.