• Nana

  Participated · Series A · Oct 2024

  Dastgyr is a demand-led B2B marketplace launched in 2020 that connects retailers with suppliers, manufacturers and wholesalers to enable wholesale ordering and next-day delivery. The platform offers a sellers app for product uploads, pricing and purchase orders while buyers use the marketplace to order inventory. Dastgyr expanded beyond FMCG into electronics, pharmaceuticals, industrial goods, raw materials and construction materials. It uses a cross-docking, asset-light fulfilment model to move goods quickly and offers Shariah-compliant lending services for largely unbanked or underbanked sellers and buyers. The company targets Pakistan’s ~2 million SMBs and the broader SMB market opportunity cited at around $150 billion in value. Following the raise, Dastgyr plans further geographic expansion and to broaden fintech offerings while investing in technology and people.

• SnappRetail

  Participated · Seed · Sep 2022

  SnappRetail provides POS devices and an end-to-end operations platform for inventory management, stock ordering and analytics to help small retailers digitize core store operations. The platform enables digital and card payments and offers access to microcredit for working capital. The company monetizes via a monthly retail fee and by selling retail sales data to large consumer goods manufacturers, with plans to add monetization through partnerships for loans, B2B aggregation and card payments. SnappRetail aims to expand to 1,000 customers and cover 13 cities by the end of 2024, targeting 300,000 of Pakistan’s 900,000 grocery retailers that account for 50% of grocery transaction volume. The startup was founded in 2021 by Adeel Rasheed, Moazzam Ali Khan, Ahsan Aziz and Moiz Ali; Rasheed and Khan have prior experience at consumer goods companies and the team previously ran a retail recruitment consultancy, Resource Linked.

• Dastgyr Technologies

  Participated · Series A · Jun 2022

  Dastgyr is a Pakistan-based B2B e-commerce marketplace led by co-founder Zohaib Ali. Its one-stop application connects thousands of retailers with suppliers, giving businesses real-time visibility on pricing and financing rates. Platform partners have included Coca-Cola, Nestle and Reckitt. In June 2022 the company closed a $15 million Series A to support growth. The new capital will fund expansion into 15 additional Pakistani cities beyond its existing network in Karachi, Lahore, Sialkot and Gujranwala. Dastgyr will remain an independent entity following the investment, with VEON Ventures taking a minority position. Dastgyr operates a mobile-first B2B marketplace that lets kiryana stores order inventory—over 2,000 SKUs currently—from multiple suppliers with next-day delivery in Karachi and Lahore. Founded in 2020 by former Careem and Airlift employees, the startup has an asset-light model: it does not hold inventory, instead routing supplier shipments through its sorting centers for dispatch. Since its official launch in September 2020, Dastgyr says it has served 30,000 retailers. The company is experimenting with fintech products, including a BNPL pilot that has increased average basket sizes, and plans to offer microloans via third-party partners rather than funding loans on its own books. Dastgyr will use the new funding to enhance technology and scale operations while competing in a crowded Pakistani grocery-supply space.

• MarketForce

  Participated · Debt Financing · Feb 2022

  MarketForce operates RejaReja, a merchant super app that lets informal traders source hundreds of FMCG SKUs directly from manufacturers and distributors, place and pay for orders digitally, accept utility payments, and access loans. The company is rolling out merchant inventory financing (an overdraft-like BNPL for merchants) after a successful pilot that tripled order stock value, and plans to introduce additional fintech services like BNPL, insurance, savings, and investment. RejaReja is asset-light, relying on partner-owned logistics and aims to expand across more East and West African markets. Operational traction includes more than 87,000 orders to date at an average basket of $151, 40% month-on-month growth, and an expected run-rate above $60M in annualized transaction volume last year. MarketForce says it will scale headcount and merchant base rapidly — targeting 250,000 merchants in the coming months (up from 5,000 a year earlier) and previously projecting 1 million merchants by year-end. The company also uses merchant transaction history to build credit profiles and partners with lenders like Pezesha to extend loans. MarketForce operates a retail distribution SaaS and RejaReja, a B2B e-commerce marketplace that lets informal merchants buy FMCGs and digital financial services with next-day delivery for hundreds of SKUs. RejaReja, launched in December 2020, is an asset-light marketplace that leverages partners (distributors, manufacturers, 3PLs) rather than owning warehouses or trucks. The company integrated acquired platform Digiduka to provide a wallet and enable merchants to collect mobile money and bank payments via app, WhatsApp bots, or USSD. MarketForce extends working capital to kiosks based on ordering habits and uses its network to distribute both FMCGs and financial services. The startup has a presence in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania; over 15,000 retail customers use RejaReja to process thousands of orders daily. Its legacy SaaS product has over 10,000 monthly active users, and users have completed 300,000 transactions worth more than $500 million since 2018. With recent traction on the e-commerce side, the company plans to scale RejaReja across more East African towns and launch in Nigeria.

• BigOmics

  Participated · Series A · Dec 2021

  BigOmics builds governed self-service analytics platforms that let biologists and bioinformaticians interactively analyze and interpret omics data via an easy-to-use interface, reducing reliance on static reports. Its platform enables bioinformaticians to delegate routine analyses to biologists while focusing on bespoke work, aiming to balance data quality with analysis agility. The company’s vision is to fast-track omics data analysis and cut discovery time and R&D overhead in data-driven therapeutics and precision medicine. To date BigOmics has closed six enterprise subscriptions with biotech/pharma companies and academic labs. In December the company announced a $1.85 million financing round, and the most recent strategic investment brought total capital raised to CHF 2.7 million. The firm plans to use the funds to further develop its platforms, expand its team and grow its market presence. BigOmics Analytics develops governed self-service analytics (GSSA) platforms, including its flagship Omics Playground, for visualizing and analyzing transcriptomics and proteomics data. Its platforms let bioinformaticians delegate routine tasks to biologists and enable interactive communication between stakeholders, improving data quality and analysis agility. The company supports biotech and pharma companies as well as academic labs, and its Omics Playground has been accessed by more than 16,000 users. BigOmics has closed enterprise subscriptions with three biotech & pharma companies and two academic labs. The startup plans to expand its team and actively commercialize its platform solutions to accelerate scientific discovery and reduce data analysis time and costs. BigOmics is a spin-off of the Institute of Oncology Research and IDSIA and is incubated at the USI Startup Centre in Lugano, Ticino.

No current team members are available.