YCombinator led the round, with new investors including i2i Ventures, Flexport, Soma Capital, and Rebel Fund. Existing investors such as Global Founders Capital, Fatima Gobi Ventures (FGV), and TPL E-ventures participated in the round, as did famous angel investor Arash Ferdowsi (Co-Founder Dropbox), the business said in a statement. The Karachi-based B2B2C startup, founded in 2019 by Salman Allana, previously head of the strategy and business development at UPS Pakistan and assistant vice president at Citibank, reported last year that it had secured $2.3 million in a pre-seed round. Since then, the firm claims that its monthly income has increased by 110 percent, and its client base has more than quadrupled to 650 online vendors. “Rider has already successfully delivered over 3 million items across 60 cities in Pakistan,” the company stated in a statement.
Rider, according to Allana, was founded because existing courier businesses in Pakistan were not prepared to service the e-commerce sector and were “failing to grasp the online shopping trend.” “Rider has aspirations to strengthen Pakistan’s e-commerce ecosystem with solutions and infrastructure that go beyond logistics,” he added. In 2021, Pakistan’s startup industry had its strongest year yet, with 81 agreements worth $350 million reported. The sum raised was more than five times that of 2020, totaling $65 million. Despite a few setbacks, the startup industry has maintained its pace in 2022. According to Invest2Innovate’s Deal Flow Tracker, companies raised a total of $163 million in the first quarter. Dastgyr, a Pakistan-based B2B e-commerce marketplace platform, earned $37 million in a Series A funding round headed by Veon Ventures last week. Read Also: Best Courier Service Providers in Pakistan However, lately, Swvl declared that it is discontinuing intra-city services “in light of the worldwide economic slowdown,” while Airlift revealed that it is decreasing its global headcount by 31%. Truck It In, a logistics company has also announced layoffs. Also Read: Nadra will Introduce an IT Solution to Maintain Digital Census Data
