Pakistani startups raised $69M in Q4 2021 across 22 deals. This took the total amount raised by Pakistani startups in 2021 to $350M across 81 deals, more than 5x more than what was raised in 2020. The Pakistani startup funding landscape has reached an exciting inflection point, raising unprecedented rounds with international VCs writing significant cheques into the country. Here are some takeaways worth noting:
– In 2021, e-commerce raised $202M in 23 deals, and fintech raised $95M in 25 deals. However, in Q4 fintech startups raised more than e-commerce startups for the first time. This is because the regulatory environment shifted this past year, opening up the sector significantly for the first time. In 2022, we will see fintech startups raise later and larger funding rounds, matching & potentially surpassing the growth of the e-commerce space.
– Average ticket sizes in fintech have been on the rise since 2016. In 2021 the average ticket size in fintech stood at $4.8M versus $6.5M in e-commerce, which will continue to increase as current fintech plays raise later rounds of funding since most fintech deals in 2021 were pre-seed and seed. Similarly, the average ticket size for fintech deals grew from $2.6M to $4.8M in 2021.
– Although in Q4 2021, no female-founded startups raised investment, overall in 2021 female founded businesses a total of $4M in 2 deals (Oraan & Sehat Kahani), which is the highest ever so far. Female cofounded startups on the other hand have raised the highest amount ($114M) this year in comparison to any year before (given that Airlift, which raised $85M in their historic Series B, has a female co-founder).
– Startups also saw an increase in average ticket sizes by stage. Average ticket sizes for pre-seed deals jumped from $1.3M in 2020 to $2.4M in 2021. Similarly, the average seed deal was $3.9M versus just under $1M in 2020. Series A went from an average of $7M to $8.1M and Series B went from $13M to $18M (even without including Airlift’s 85M).