Bazaar raises $30 million in one of Pakistan’s largest fundraisings by early-stage startup

The picture shows team members of Pakistan-based business-to-business marketplace, Bazaar. (Photo courtesy: Social media)

• Business-to-business marketplace has amassed over 750,000 merchants since l last year with 90 percent retention rate 
• Pakistan, world’s fifth-most populous nation, has $170 billion retail market that has yet to see technological deployment

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistan-based business-to-business marketplace, Bazaar, has raised $30 million in the largest Series A funding round in the South Asian country, the company said on Tuesday. 
Currently, Bazaar’s business-to-business marketplace is available in Karachi and Lahore, while its Easy Khata service is live across the country. 
Pakistan has roughly five million micro, small, and medium-sized businesses, but most of them are not connected, according to Bazaar founders Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda. 
The new financing round was led by Silicon Valley-based early-stage VC Defy Partners and Singapore-based Wavemaker Partners. Other investors participating in the round included Antler, Careem, Endeavor, Gumroad, LinkedIn, Acrew Capital, Japan’s Saison Capital, UAE’s Zayn Capital, B&Y Venture Partners, Indus Valley Capital, Global Founders Capital, Next Billion Ventures, and Alter Global. 
“We’ve been investing in FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods) B2B marketplaces across the region since 2017. After working with Hamza and Saad over the past year, we’ve been impressed by their customer-centric approach to product development and the speed of their learning and execution,” Paul Santos, managing partner at Wavemaker Partners, said in a statement.
“It’s no surprise that they’ve received glowing reviews from their customers and partners. We’re excited to support Bazaar as they solidify their market leadership and digitize Pakistan’s retail ecosystem.” 
The one-year-old start-up, which is also helping merchants digitize their bookkeeping, is a mix of India’s Udaan B2B marketplace and Khatabook digital ledger. 
“That’s a good way to describe us. We had this benefit of hindsight to not just look at India but other emerging markets,” Bazaar co-founder Hamza Jawaid told TechCrunch in an interview. 
“We saw lots of synergies between these two. If you look at commerce, you have to acquire every single merchant in every single category differently. Whereas with Khata, merchants in any city and category can download it. So effectively, it’s a great customer acquisition tool for you.” 
Pakistan, the world’s fifth-most populous nation, has a booming $170 billion retail market that has yet to see much technological deployment, Jangda said. 
Jawaid and Jangda have known each other since childhood and reconnected in Dubai a few years ago, the TechCrunch report said. At the time, Jawaid was at McKinsey & Company and Jangda was working with Careem as a product manager for ride-hailing and food delivery products. 
The startup says it has amassed over 750,000 merchants since its launch last year, with a 90 percent retention rate.
Asked if he plans to expand to the ‘dukaan (shop)’ category as several Asian startups are currently building tools to help merchants accept digital orders, Jangda said: “The B2C (business-to-customer) market is still developing, so there is not so much demand from the consumer side yet.” 
Instead, Bazaar is currently focused on financial services. In recent months, the startup said it had tested a buy-now-pay-later product and early results had shown a 100 percent repayment.