Farhan Masood, founder of SoloInsight, has been given the prestigious award of Entrepreneur of the year at Open Karachi’s flagship event eCon14. Masood is a name known to everyone in the tech industry for he has been scoring plethora of achievements for the country and himself.

eCon14 happened earlier today at Karachi where entrepreneurs and business leaders participated from all over the country. The event provide networking opportunities to aspiring entrepreneurs in order to build an Entrepreneurial ecosystem in Pakistan.

Masood was given the award of Entrepreneur of the year in recognition to his contribution, commitment, and performance. He is the role model for all the up and coming aspiring entrepreneurs of Pakistan. Earlier this year, during an interview on Voice of America, he discussed his entrepreneurial journey, his struggles of starting from scratch and rising from ashes to secure 3 million dollars of investment and then finally moving the business to America with fancy clientele all over the world.


http://www.techjuice.pk/farhan-masood-awarded-with-entrepreneur-of-...

SoloInsight Inc. is an innovative electronics engineering and IT company working in the fields of research and development of diverse intelligent pattern recognition technologies and products. As a technology provider with core expertise in computer vision, Solometrics provides the development of technologies and solutions related to the human recognition that targets the security market. Leveraging the most advanced multi model biometric platform for face & retina recognition, our solutions provide a circle of trust around all aspects of the identity and the credentials assigned to it. This includes enrollment, registration, usage, access and reporting.

SoloInsight has specialized in Face, Eyes and Fingerprint recognition based Access Control hardware, software and integrated solutions. We have successfully catered our solutions to environments where other biometric devices did not work efficiently. Face and Retina Recognition is getting more popular because its performance has improved radically over the years. SoloInsight is amongst the pioneers in biometrics industry. Having reached accuracy rates of around 99%.


http://live.soloinsight.com/

Pakistan tech on the rise

Pakistan rarely makes the news for its technological progress or contributions to the tech world at large. Sadly it is better known for its civil unrest, homegrown terrorists, and extremist violence. But the country is encouraging a growing faction of entrepreneurs in technology, and is not to be left out of the evolving tech scene. Despite an internet penetration level of under 15% as of last year according to Internet World Stats, some are looking to the country’s startup culture and its lack of legacy infrastructure to help it develop a successful technology industry.

Startup accelerator Invest2Innovate (i2i) has been supporting entrepreneurs and small business owners for a few years now; Tech in Asia reports this week that the accelerator has mentored 16 young businesses. Graduate startups from i2i have raised US$700,000 in investment so far — what seems like a paltry sum to Silicon Valley tech, but the accelerator is boosting jobs and advancing interest in tech. In December of last year, Kalsoom Lakhani, founder and CEO of i2i commented on the movement towards supporting technological innovations in Pakistan for The Next Web: “A number of Pakistan-based technology entrepreneurs – many of whom have had some exposure to well-developed ecosystems like Silicon Valley, New York or London – have been and remain deeply committed to growing this space, often participating as judges, mentors, advisors and investors to competitions, incubators/accelerators and startups.” The accelerator has plans for expanding into other countries as well.

Other startups have gained international recognition, particularly gaming-based businesses. The lack of internet penetration in Pakistan is certainly a hindrance to native tech adoption, but that has not stopped game developers from becoming popular with players and users in other countries. And tech like social gaming is important for developing tech culture as it promotes connecting with users through digital forums. Despite rampant poverty throughout Pakistan, there is growing interest in what internet connection has to offer. Figures like Mariam Adil — a woman at the forefront of Pakistan’s tech entrepreneur scene and startup culture — have become famous for promoting the country’s vested interest in gaming, social technology, and web-based development.

Yet, obvious obstacles remain. One of them being the government’s work to tightly control cyber culture within the country. In late April, the parliament examined a proposed bill entitled The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2015, which would allow the government to censor content and criminalize certain web-based activity under broad parameters. The bill would also allow the government to access data on individual users without any judicial processes. Such legislation mirrors the behavior of Pakistan’s neighbor China. Perhaps the country has been taking notes. No doubt, as startups gain ground in Pakistan, there will be an inevitable pushback against laws that strictly regulate internet use.

http://blogs.blouinnews.com/blouinbeattechnology/2015/05/01/feature...

Bookme.pk, a young Pakistani startup, has raised the first round of investment at a valuation of 4 million dollars. Bookme is the fastest and most convenient way, available in Pakistan, to book cinema or bus tickets online from a website or a mobile application. The startup has gained several accolades and has been in the news for all the great reasons. Just last year, it managed to secure seed funding at Startup Turkey event.

Now Bookme has raised the investment from Element Ventures as well. Faizan, Founder & CEO of Bookme, didn’t disclose the amount but has given a hint that the investment is in 6 digits.

See also: Young Startup, Interacta raises 220K USD as seed funding

Meanwhile, Faisal Sherjan, Director Jang Group (GEO TV) has resigned GEO to join Bookme as Director. Faisal has been associated with media industry for more than 30 years and has also been actively mentoring Bookme and several other startups since the very beginning. Faizan believes that the experience, network and guidance of Faisal will take Bookme a long way. Since the team is planning to launch the services and expand operations in several other cities of Pakistan. Faisal, as the director, will be of great help and support.

Bookme has pursued several big targets in a matter of few months. The startup has made partnerships will all major media groups in Pakistan such as GEO, ARY, Hum TV. All these channels have been airing Bookme application advertisements with every upcoming movie promotion. These media groups are also using Bookme application as back end which is helping the startup generate more sales without spending too much on the marketing end.

See also:Rozee.pk raises $6.5 million in Series C venture funding from Vostok Nafta and Piton Capital

This update is the latest addition to the achievement list of Bookme, the startup also partnered with Microsoft Pakistan recently. According to the contract, all the upcoming Windows Phones by Microsoft will have Bookme application pre-installed thereby, increasing the reach and audience of the application. Moreover, Bookme has also dispersed its widgets in almost all the popular websites, thus, helping people buy tickets without navigating out of the website.

This news comes at a time when we’re seeing several local and intl. investors finally taking interest in the technology and startup industry of Pakistan. Here is a quick timeline of the major achievements of Bookme in the past months.

http://www.techjuice.pk/pakistani-startup-bookme-pk-raises-investme...

Investors pledge over $4 million in startups at LUMS Investors’ Summit in #Lahore #Pakistan http://bit.ly/1PRqITM via @techjuicepk

A total of 10 startups presented their businesses to local and international investors in an exclusive event arranged at LUMS

LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship (LCE), the university’s flagship experiential development platform for entrepreneurs held an exclusive investor event to mark the graduation of their third cohort of startups graduating from The Foundation incubator.

It is to be noted here that LCE also arranged an investors summit after the completion of their first cycle. Which was attended by the big names of business industry of Pakistan. Interacta of the same batch has raised 220,000 dollars as investment.

These startups went through an intense, 4-months-long, startup development bootcamp at LUMS and have been mentored by some of the best in the industry. The startups were selected by an elite, independent panel of business leaders 4 months ago after a nation-wide search.

The Foundation Investors Summit, which was held at the Rausing Executive Development Center in LUMS was the annual investor event organized by the LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship. The event included a mix of both local and international investors who came to show support to these businesses including Salman Amin of Jhonson and Sons, Ali Mukhtar of Fatima Group, Aezaz Hussain of Systems Limited, Farooq Nasim of Gree Pak and Syed Babar Ali amongst others.

Startups that pitched their businesses at the summit included

Jewelry Design Pro, a startup that provides a virtual global jewelry marketplace for trading any digitally downloadable design,
Repair Desk, a cloud based ERP for mobile phone repair,
HealthWire, an e-commerce startup that is increasing the accessibility of doctors and patients,
BeautyHooked, an online platform to connect women to beauty services,
Wedding Graphers, a branded, economical wedding graphing facility in Lahore.
Chinyot.com, the first of its kind online furniture and home décor retail brand in Pakistan,
AliffIqra, Pakistan’s first online Quran assistance program,
King Kashmiri Tea, a revolution in the traditional Kashmiri tea in the form of teabags,
Teachus.pk, an online portal to provide home tuition services by connecting students and tutors
Technician.pk, platform to provide repair and maintenance of electric appliances.
The LUMS Investors Summit opened with an introduction of LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship (LCE) and the impact that it has created in the past one year.

13 #technology #startup incubators, accelerators and workspaces in #Pakistan http://techin.asia/1k1TBSX via @techinasia

ttitudes towards entrepreneurship have changed drastically in Pakistan in the past few years, partly fueled by the success of startups in the region as well as broadening access to the internet.

Just a couple of years ago, budding entrepreneurs in Pakistan would have found it difficult to gain access to mentors, business training, and investors due to the lack of interest in encouraging disruptive startups. Now, however, the landscape has changed and startup founders have a choice when determining which incubator to reach out to.

In no particular order, here are some incubators and accelerators making an impact in Pakistan.

Plan9, The Nest I/O, LUMS Center For Entrepreneurship, i2i, PlanX, Microsoft Innovation Center, Technology Incubation Center, DotZero, BaseCamp, Founders Institute, NSpire, Tech Incubator and WeCreate Pakistan

12 #startups from #Pakistan that raised funding in 2015. #technology https://www.techinasia.com/12-startups-pakistan-raised-funding-2015... …

1. Zamzama Property Group
Zamzama Property Group, which is the parent company of real estate sites Zameen and Bayut, raised US$9 million in series B financing, marking the largest investment in a Pakistan-based startup this year.

2. Naseeb Networks
Naseeb Networks is the holding company of job portals Rozee and Mihnati, concentrating on Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, respectively. The startup raised a US$6.5 million series C round, bringing its total funding to US$8.5 million. 

3. Wifigen
Wifigen, a startup that provides wifi solutions for businesses in exchange for social media logins, raised an undisclosed amount of seed investment valuing the company at US$1 million. The angel investor behind this round is John Russell Patrick – a former executive at IBM and an early-stage investor in Uber.


4. Bookme
Bookme, an online platform for booking bus, cinema, and event tickets, secured an undisclosed amount of seed investment from Element Ventures, which valued the company at US$4 million. The startup was previously one of the Startup Arena finalists at Tech in Asia Jakarta 2014.

5. EatOye
EatOye, an online food delivery service, was acquired by Rocket Internet’s Foodpanda as part of a regional acquisition spree to assert its dominance in the sector. The startup was a late entrant to the online delivery space in Pakistan, but had started to seriously threaten Foodpanda’s position at the top of the perch – hence the buyout.

6. Forrun
Delivery and logistics startup Forrun was acquired by technology services company Arpatech. The acquisition was made in line with a concentration on ecommerce, logistics, and technology verticals.


7. Markhor
Markhor, which makes handcrafted artisanal shoes, stole the show this year when it became the first startup from Pakistan to be accepted into Y Combinator, thus receiving US$120,000 in seed capital. Waqas Ali, founder of Markhor, had told Tech in Asia that the acceleration was aimed at strengthening Markhor’s position as a luxury lifestyle brand.

8. Interacta
Interacta, a startup which is trying to redefine conventional broadcasting by making television shows interactive, raised US$220,000 in seed funding from Fatima Ventures. The startup’s app, which is similar to music detection service Shazam, analyzes sound coming from television channels and pushes content accordingly. For example, in cooking shows, users can view the recipe directly on their phones. Broadcasters can also use the app for targeted advertisements.


9. Sportskot
Sportskot is a marketplace for sporting goods manufactured in Pakistan. There’s a large, fragmented industry of sports apparel and equipment, and the startup is trying to bring them all under one umbrella to assist in visibility and appeal to international clientele. Sportskot raised US$140,000 in seed funding to expand its operations.


10. MySmacED
MySmacED, a startup in the edtech space, is a communication platform that enables real-time information sharing between parents, teachers, students, and administrators. It creates a “moderated social network,” while also assisting with feedback on child performance and easier information sharing between teachers and students. The startup raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding valuing the company at US$2 million.


11. AutoGenie
Autogenie is Pakistan’s first on-demand car service and maintenance startup. Other than these basic services, it also offers premium members things like roadside assistance, regulatory and tax compliance, and car analytics. The startup raised US$100,000 in seed investment from PakWheels.

12. Mezaaj
Mezaaj is a platform for fashion designers to showcase their work and get noticed in the digital sphere. .... The startup secured an undisclosed amount of seed investment, valuing the company at US$500,000.

#Lahore's #Pakistani developer’s Wordpress theme Avada is top seller at $10m in sales. #Pakistan #technology http://bit.ly/1YApswO 

Avada theme available at Envato marketplace, has become the top selling theme while the developer, Themefusion, has now crossed a milestone of 10 million dollars.

This theme is developed by Haris Zulfiqar and Luke Beck under the company name of “Themefusion”. The two met at Envato, a digital marketplace for creative assets by web designers. In the year 2013, we told our readers that their theme hit a 1 million dollar sale number. Fast forward a couple of years and Avada has continued to show immense growth in terms of new purchases and now, Themefusion has managed to cross the $10 Million milestone on the platform.

Themefusion is also the first ever seller to cross the $10 Million sales mark on Envato Market. When asked if they had any idea they would be so successful by Envato, Luke said that “neither of us had any idea that three years later we’d have achieved this level of success. It’s quite amazing and completely surreal.”

Started as just a two person team, developing themes on the Envato Marketplace, they have now grown to a group of 20+ people.

When asked about a tip Haris would give to other creatives in 2016, he said,

“Always take time to be your best and do what you know is right. Take risks and build up the people around you, listen to your customers and strive to grow in every way possible.”

Freelancing is one of the fastest growing professions around the world and especially in Pakistan, where more and more people are turning to their computers in search of employment. Just a while back, a Pakistani MBBS student made the news for earning half a million dollars through freelancing and now, Haris Zulfiqar along with his other companions, has also proved the potential that lies in freelancing.

#Technology #Startup funding in #Pakistan up 600% in 2015: A banner year for nation's tech #entrepreneurs. 

http://www.eurasiareview.com/28012016-2015-was-a-game-changer-for-p... …

Though start-ups in Pakistan have been on and about their tasks for several years now, it was 2015 that really put them on the venture-capital-funding map. In 2014, Pakistani start-ups managed to raise a mere $4 million, but the funding jumped to $23 million in 2015. Despite the fact many firms who secured funding chose not to disclose their numbers, the collective $23 million still represented close to 600% increase in investment.

Analysing the prevalent trends, the buzz and hype around online businesses, one can expect a bright future for Pakistan’s technology industry and international companies and investors have started noticing the advancement.

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Though slowly, the idea of taking the business online is becoming an evident realisation and companies are scrambling to develop online platforms that help their businesses grow. Consumers are taking to the idea and ease of shopping online, although there remains a massive room for improvement (and hence window of opportunity) in the quality of services up on offer.

Still the country’s tech scene has its knights. Companies like Rozee.com, Pakwheels.com and Zameen.com have not only made a name for themselves for being the pioneers in their respective fields, they have also upped the antes time and again by reinvigorating their portals and providing improved facilities to their users over and over again.

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Efforts of The Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) have also been quite instrumental in Pakistan’s technology industry’s growth in 2015. Apart from raising awareness regarding the uses of IT among the public and automation of the Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education and the Citizen Feedback Monitoring Program, PITB also laid strong foundations for tech-entrepreneurship by establishing Plan9, the largest technology incubator in Pakistan distinguished by its zero-equity model.

Since its inception in 2012, Plan9 has graduated 66 start-ups, created roughly 500 jobs and over $2 million in funding. Commenting on Pakistani start-ups, Blackbox.vc Founder & CEO Fadi Bishara said Pakistani start-ups were more hard-core tech than Silicon Valley start-ups.

Currently, academic institutions are also playing a supportive role in increasing awareness about online entrepreneurship. LUMS Centre of Entrepreneurship, Information Technology University and National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences are now offering courses on entrepreneurship. While these courses are merely theoretical, they provide students with the much needed confidence to pursue unexplored professions.

With Pakistan’s technology sector becoming more vibrant than ever, one can expect the current year to be bring even gladder tidings for the country’s tech-preneurs, as well as the start-ups mushrooming across the country. Here’s to another year of change and progress.

t’s No #SiliconValley, but #Pakistan is Building Its Own Startup Scene. #Technology http://www.newsweek.com/pakistan-building-silicon-valley-scene-426408 …

In the past five years, Pakistan’s startup ecosystem has grown from a nascent colony to a self-sustaining environment. Zameen, an online real estate startup based in Lahore, has ridden that startup wave in developing a Zillow-like app and website that allows users to search and buy real estate listings in Pakistan’s largest cities.

Like many famous U.S. internet companies, Zameen started with a gamble. In 2006, Zeeshan Ali Khan and his brother left their e-commerce business in the United Kingdom to move to Pakistan and started Zameen in their bedrooms. Back then, online-only services in Pakistan were rare, but Ali Khan followed the money coming into Pakistani real estate from expats living abroad—a million of whom lived in the United Kingdom. Now Zameen employees 500 people and has offices in nearly all major cities in Pakistan.

“Zameen.com came into being when we realised there was a desperate need for a trustworthy online real estate enterprise in Pakistan, especially given the importance the average Pakistani attaches to property,” Ali Khan tells Newsweek in an email. “Back then the state of internet infrastructure in Pakistan was extremely poor but the offline property market was exploding. Facilitated by large investments from the Pakistani diaspora, people found that investing in real estate would earn them significant returns.”

Pakistan’s fast-growing economy and, perhaps more importantly, large English-speaking population has provided a backbone to encourage startups to form and work with foreign companies.

The country has seen startup hubs form around elite universities in cities like Lahore and Karachi—similar to Boston and San Francisco—in the last few years. The Punjab province, where Lahore is located, has been the major hotspot for startups in Pakistan. Plan9, the Punjab provincial government-run technology incubator, hosts over 80 startups. Ali Khan believes there are 140 startups in Lahore, a city of 5 million people.

But Pakistani startups are still minnows compared to those in Silicon Valley. Cultural and economic norms, like being predominantly reliant on cash for transactions, are big obstacles for startups. Despite leading the South Asian region in consumers using mobile payments, only 9 percent of Pakistani men and 2 percent of women have used mobile phones for money transfers. Around 39 percent of Americans have used mobile banking in 2015, according to a report from the Federal Reserve.

To accommodate its cash-based users, Zameen employs motorcycle riders to collect payments from Zameen agents across 30 Pakistani cities in person. “The situation is improving, and a lot of people are beginning to feel more comfortable with online payments and even mobile transactions,” says Ali Khan.

Earning public trust for a little-known startup—a concept now just becoming understood in Pakistan—was a big challenge as well. When Zameen began, it discovered most of the Pakistani property market undocumented, and reliable data was nearly non-existent.

Pakistani consumers, including Ali Khan’s family, had a hard time becoming comfortable with Zameen and its Silicon Valley-inspired ideas. “My family was a little apprehensive when I told them I wanted to start a business of my own,” Ali Khan says. “Today however, the attitudes have greatly changed, thanks to the startup ecosystem that is supporting the startup culture in Pakistan.”

The two biggest hurdles Zameen and fellow startups face are the low penetration rates of 3G/4G mobile Internet and the lack of support from its government. In 2015, only 22 million out of 182 million Pakistanis had 3G/4G technology, leaving little room for startups to continue growing and scale upwards with their online services.

Infrastructural issues like 3G/4G technology need the government’s help, but such support has been lacking, according to Ali Khan.

A #crowdfunding platform to solve #Pakistan's #healthcare woes. 200 surgeries funded to date http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/a-crowdfunding-p... …

Pakistan-based startup Transparent Hands is a crowdfunding platform which looks to address the problem of a lack of access to quality healthcare in the nation. Pakistan has a population of approximately 200 million people, yet its health indicators are abysmal. The government allocates only 0.67% of GDP on the healthcare sector; so the country’s public health infrastructure is almost non-existent. 

While patients can receive access to quality healthcare facilities, it is very expensive. With a reported 58.7 million citizens living under the poverty line, this is simply not possible for a vast segment of the populace.

Transparent Hands, which was incubated at Lahore-based Plan9, launched operations in 2014 with the objective of bringing transparency to charitable donations in Pakistan. Founder Rameeza Moin says that the venture is entirely not-for-profit and came about after a thorough analysis of the existing healthcare segment in the country.

“There are many potential donors across the world who want to contribute, but they don’t know where and when to send their money or whether their donations will be utilized in a proper way. This is the main issue we’re trying to overcome,” she adds.
Transparency is at the core of the startup’s processes. Team members visit rural and semi-urban areas to find patients in need of critical medical care. Their cases are verified, both in terms of health and finances. The startup currently only works with patients who require surgery.

Since its launch, Transparent Hands has facilitated over 200 surgeries and has partner hospitals in four cities. Its next step is to expand into other major urban centers, as well as focus on other areas of service delivery – such as education.

Two dozen #Pakistani #tech startups got foreign and domestic #VC funding in 2015, a new record. #Pakistan
http://www.dawn.com/news/1267408

Tech startups are doing reasonably well and look set for growth despite a lack of adequate financing from banks and venture capital outfits.

In 2015, about two dozen tech start-ups, old and new, obtained funds from abroad or from local venture capitals (VC). Some of them are now doing good business.

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The list of tech start-ups that raised sufficient funds in 2015 include both old and new firms like app-based travelling services Careem, shopping portal Daraz.pk, the real estate’s online listing portal Zameen.com, job portal Rozee.com, entrepreneurship programme Interacta, on-demand car maintenance service AuotGenie and 18 others.

A cursory look at their sources of financing shows that it came from abroad, such as $60m in case of Careem from the UAE-based Abraaj Group, or $22m partial-funding from a UK-based DFI in case of Daraz.pk. In some cases, money flowed in from regional VC like $33m partial funding for Daraz.pk from the Asia-Pacific Internet Group.

But in some cases like $9m foreign funds raised by Zameen.com, specific details of the investors remained unknown.

AutoGenie managed to raise $100,000 from PakWheels.com a big local online car-portal that had itself raised $3.5m a year earlier from a Malaysian venture capital firm. Interacta, an entrepreneurship startup of the Lahore University of Management Science secured $220,000 in seed funding from Lahore-based Fatima Ventures.

A sizable fund-raising of tech startups came under spotlight in 2013 when four entities mobilised funds worth less than $10m. In 2014, 10 tech start-ups came up and raised almost the same amount of funds. But in 2015 no less than 24 startups pulled in an estimated $100m from various sources not just in seed capital but, in some cases, for capacity building and outreach.

However, some borrowers do not share details about the amount and sources of their debt. Information trickles in, though, from individual sources and a couple of websites do the much-needed record-keeping for the benefit of their visitors.

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Markhor, a shopping portal that sells hand-made leather shoes has already won a unique recognition at Y Combinatory, a three-month incubation programme at Silicon Valley and has also received $120,000 in seed capital.

Plan9, a local venture capital of the Punjab Information Technology Board boasts of having provided incubation training to over 100 startups so far but except for a few, those startups have got additional funds from foreign sources, industry sources say.

Sometimes, financing tech startups seems just like impact financing, a concept now gaining currency along with the concept of social business. And that is why banks and some, less-resourceful, local VCs shy away from it.

But in a majority of cases, tech startups have also proved to be highly profitable businesses with annual growth rates of 100-400pc, industry sources say. The driving factors include tailor-made, time-saving services that these startups provide, growing use of smart phones and the internet, level of innovation offered and expanding e-commerce.

The potential of tech startups to impact the way large businesses are currently being run is immense. Take, for example, the case of EveryCatalog.com.

This two-year old startup has undertaken to showcase catalogues of businesses in such broad categories like textiles, apparel, shoes, jewelry and accessories, interior designs/ furnishing and custom design products/handicrafts. Its mobile applications, it claims, are capable of delivering a full e-commerce platform where sellers can exhibit their products for sale.

Almost 1,000 #startups, 40% of all startups, died in #India in the last two years. #BJP http://qz.com/734236 via @qzindia

Here’s the bitter truth about entrepreneurship in India: Over 40% of startups set up in the last two years have already shut shop.
Since June 2014, some 2,281 Indian startups had begun operations across a range of sectors, including e-commerce, health technology, robotics, logistics, business intelligence and analytics, food technology, and online recruitment. But, according to data analysed by Delhi-based research firm Xeler8, 997 of these have already failed.

The main reason, it appears, is a lack of funding. “Ones which got an investment lasted a little longer,” said Rishabh Lawania, Xeler8’s founder. For the rest, the end came swiftly, usually within the first 12 months of launching.

The highest number of casualties were in red-hot sectors such as logistics, e-commerce, and food technology, where some of India’s most successful startups operate. Lack of innovation and over-crowding probably led to the closures.
The e-commerce casualties included online lifestyle store Fashionara and fashion marketplace DoneByNone. Dazo, Spoonjoy, and Eatlo failed in the food tech space. Other prominent failures were recruitment marketplace TalentPad.com, marketplace for leisure activities, Tushky, and on-demand laundry services Tooler.

But such failure is hardly the end of the road for some entrepreneurs. Although around 75% of the founders of failed startups did not try again, instead finding jobs at other firms or startups, the remainder is likely to attempt again. Time is on their side: the average age of founders of these failed startups was only 27 years.

#SaudiArabia, #Japan's #SoftBank plan $100 billion #technology fund ─ one of the world's biggest. #VentureCapital

http://www.dawn.com/news/1289957/saudi-arabia-softbank-plan-100-bil...

Saudi Arabia and Japan's SoftBank Group (9984.T) said they will create a technology investment fund that could grow as large as $100 billion, aiming to create one of the world's largest private equity funds.

The plan is part of a series of dramatic business initiatives launched by Riyadh this year as Saudi Arabia, its economy hurt by low oil prices, deploys huge financial reserves in an effort to move into non-oil industries.

SoftBank's founder and chairman Masayoshi Son, who has built his company into a $68bn telecommunications and tech investment behemoth from a $50,000 start-up, has been seeking to expand in new areas.

The Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia's top sovereign wealth fund, is set to be the lead investment partner and may invest up to $45bn over the next five years while SoftBank expects to invest at least $25bn, the Japanese company said in a statement.

Several other large investors are in talks on their possible participation and could bring the total size of the new fund up to $100bn. The investors were not identified.

"With the establishment of the SoftBank Vision Fund, we will be able to step up investments in technology companies globally. Over the next decade, the SoftBank Vision Fund will be the biggest investor in the technology sector," SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son said.

The fund would be managed in Britain by a subsidiary of SoftBank.

Investment power
Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, leading an economic reform drive in the kingdom, has revealed a string of high-profile investment plans this year.

He has said he aims to expand the PIF, founded in 1971 to finance development projects in the kingdom and until this year little known abroad, from $160bn to about $2 trillion, making it the world's largest sovereign fund.

In June, the PIF departed from Saudi Arabia's traditional strategy of low-risk investments and took a step into the tech world by announcing the $3.5bn purchase of a stake in United States ride-hailing firm Uber.

The deal illustrated how Riyadh now hopes to use its investments to develop the economy: Uber is a popular form of transport for Saudi women, who are banned from driving, and is creating badly needed non-oil jobs for Saudi citizens.

SoftBank's tech and telecommunications portfolio ranges from U.S. carrier Sprint (S.N) to a stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (BABA.N).

Its $32bn purchase of British company ARM in July established its first major presence in chip making, driven by expectations for a shift to the so-called "internet of things" – networks of connected devices, vehicles and sensors.

Son said earlier this year that he wanted to "cement SoftBank 2.0" by working on unconventional ideas.

Ijarah Capital to launch $100 million #VentureCapital Fund in #Pakistan this year. #Tech #startup http://bit.ly/2dUWSDS via @techjuicepk

Ijara Capital Partners Limited has been granted a license to a private venture capital fund and equity under the newly promoted Private Funds Regulations 2015 by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), reports Dawn Media.

Ijara Capital Partners Limited is the second firm to receive this license. Lakson Investments Ltd. was also granted a similar license a few days ago. The license issued will be valid for a period of three years and the firm will be required to launch the fund within six months of license approval.

CEO of Ijara group Farurukh Ansari told Dawn that the fund will be worth $100 million dollars and is expected to launch in December. The fund will focus on verticals including energy, healthcare, education, infrastructure, fashion and lifestyle.

The fund will be raised by encouraging local and international VCs to invest by sharing insights and information about the business industry and opportunities in Pakistan.

Venture Capital fund shops have started to crop up in the country and deal flow has started too. Just yesterday, while presiding a meeting of information technology leaders in Lahore, Chairman PITB Dr. Umar Saif mentioned that the government is inching close to launching a government-backed venture capital fund in the country. The fund is also expected to be north of $3 million dollars and will be dubbed as ‘Innovation Fund’ because government doesn’t want equity in startups but it wants to accelerate entrepreneurship and encourage local and international investors to put their money in the business industry of Pakistan.

#Pakistan-based lockscreen app #startup closes $3.6m series A from #SouthKorean #VC bringing total raised to $4.6m
https://www.techinasia.com/slide-series-a-funding

Pakistan-based Slide, an Android lockscreen app that rewards users for clicking on ads or reading content, today announced that it’s closed a series A funding round worth US$3.6 million. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The round was led by Songhyun Investment, a South Korean VC firm. Slide has raised a total of US$4.6 million to date.

Slide launched roughly a year ago and claims to have 5 million downloads already. CEO Junaid Malik says the funds will be used to further strengthen the company’s presence in Pakistan and develop more products.

He adds that they’re now live in India and in the midst of closing deals to expand to the Middle Eastern market.

Slide is similar to apps like Candy and Popslide. It incentivizes users to read content that pops up every time they unlock their phones. Readers accumulate points for each click which they can then exchange for mobile phone top-ups.

The team’s blown past an internal target of 1 million downloads in the first year, so it’s clear that the concept is catching on.

“A year ago when I was quitting my job, most people said I shouldn’t do it and even today, I’m not sure where this journey will end but to me what matters the most is that I started from scratch,” beams Junaid.

#Pakistan bags three gold, six silver awards at #apicta2016 2016 #ICT #technology competition in #Taiwan
https://www.dawn.com/news/1300647/pakistan-bags-three-gold-six-silv...

Pakistan won three gold awards and six silver awards at the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance Awards (APICTA) 2016 ceremony held in Taipei, Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITES (P@SHA) announced Monday.

The Asia Pacific ICT Alliance Awards (APICTA Awards) is an international awards program that aims to increase information and communication technology (ICT) awareness in the community, and provides networking and product benchmarking opportunities to ICT innovators and entrepreneurs in the region.

Leading the way with the golds were a young team of students from National University for Sciences and Technology (NUST), who won the award for their project, 'Clinical Decision Support System for Diagnosis of Movement Disorders'.

Another group of students from NUST, who also bagged a gold award, for its Research and Development project called 'Analysis of Optical Coherence Tomography Image for CDSS'.

The students collaborated with various organisations such as the international non-profit Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

To bring innovation by Pakistani IT companies to the forefront, P@SHA took a delegation of 41 people to Taipei for the 16th annual APICTA Awards, a four-day event.

From Pakistan, 28 teams competed against 236 teams from 17 countries across the Asia Pacific region and were judged by more than 60 tech professionals.

The regional awards ceremony invited applications from 17 economies, including Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, China, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal and Pakistan.

Jehan Ara, president of P@SHA, said, “P@SHA showcases the true potential and diverse talent of the ICT industry in Pakistan time and again".

P@SHA prepares technology professionals from Pakistan "to compete and win against companies and products that are deemed the best in the region",

Ara added that all credit goes to the hard work put in by these teams and the efforts of mentors and judges who have been working with them individually since October.

P@SHA was founded in 1992 and has a large membership, comprising more than 450 of the country’s largest software houses, product development centers, BPO companies, Animation & New Media studios and consulting & system integration companies. The organisation's main objective is to promote and develop the software and services industry in Pakistan and to protect the rights of its members.

#Pakistan bags three gold, six silver awards at #apicta2016 2016 #ICT #technology competition in #Taiwan
https://www.dawn.com/news/1300647/pakistan-bags-three-gold-six-silv...

Pakistan won three gold awards and six silver awards at the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance Awards (APICTA) 2016 ceremony held in Taipei, Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITES (P@SHA) announced Monday.

The Asia Pacific ICT Alliance Awards (APICTA Awards) is an international awards program that aims to increase information and communication technology (ICT) awareness in the community, and provides networking and product benchmarking opportunities to ICT innovators and entrepreneurs in the region.

Leading the way with the golds were a young team of students from National University for Sciences and Technology (NUST), who won the award for their project, 'Clinical Decision Support System for Diagnosis of Movement Disorders'.

Another group of students from NUST, who also bagged a gold award, for its Research and Development project called 'Analysis of Optical Coherence Tomography Image for CDSS'.

The students collaborated with various organisations such as the international non-profit Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

To bring innovation by Pakistani IT companies to the forefront, P@SHA took a delegation of 41 people to Taipei for the 16th annual APICTA Awards, a four-day event.

From Pakistan, 28 teams competed against 236 teams from 17 countries across the Asia Pacific region and were judged by more than 60 tech professionals.

The regional awards ceremony invited applications from 17 economies, including Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, China, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal and Pakistan.

Jehan Ara, president of P@SHA, said, “P@SHA showcases the true potential and diverse talent of the ICT industry in Pakistan time and again".

P@SHA prepares technology professionals from Pakistan "to compete and win against companies and products that are deemed the best in the region",

Ara added that all credit goes to the hard work put in by these teams and the efforts of mentors and judges who have been working with them individually since October.

P@SHA was founded in 1992 and has a large membership, comprising more than 450 of the country’s largest software houses, product development centers, BPO companies, Animation & New Media studios and consulting & system integration companies. The organisation's main objective is to promote and develop the software and services industry in Pakistan and to protect the rights of its members.

To hear about what the #Austin delegation had to say about Pak's startup ecosystem & Plan9 visit the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51-lhwJSHZc …

"Idea Croron Ka" to launch as #Pakistan’s first #RealityTV #business show. #SharksTank #startup http://bit.ly/2jEpggK via @techjuicepk

Chaudhry Muhammad Akram Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (CMACED) at Superior University and Neo TV are joining hands to launch Pakistan’s first TV reality business show — Idea Croron Ka. The show is a manifestation of the announcement made during a roundtable event held back in September 2015 by PITB.

Back in 2015, it was announced that ­Nabeel A. Qadeer, Director Entrepreneurship at PITB, will host a technology show which will be telecasted on a leading TV channel.

After nearly a year of planning and development, Neo TV and CMACED at Superior University have come together to launch Idea Croron Ka. This show will strive to improve and promote the entrepreneurial spirit among individuals in Pakistan and thus transform them into job creators rather than job seekers. The idea is more or less a local version of reality show Shark Tank. Shark Tank has been massively popular among the business community worldwide, a lot of founders have achieved success owing to their appearance on the show.

Idea Croron Ka will give budding entrepreneurs a platform to present their ideas to business tycoons and investors, who will analyze their ideas and help them transform into a reality. It will also feature a segment focusing on prominent figures in Pakistan who have undergone hardships to ultimately achieve their goals.

The show will soon air on Neo TV and will feature prominent names from business and technology fields as judges and investors. Below is the official press release from NEO TV end.

Dodging Illicit Cash, Pakistan Startups Hunt for Angel Funds
by Chris Kay and Faseeh Mangi
May 8, 2017, 1:31 PM PDT May 8, 2017, 8:47 PM PDT

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-08/dodging-illicit-...

In an attempt to boost entrepreneurship, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif set up a loan program for those under the age of 45 to set up businesses, providing interest free loans to more than 260,000 people since his election in 2013. That’s critical in a country where nearly two-thirds of the population is under 30, according to the Jinnah Institute, a Islamabad-based think tank.

Leila Khan, a lawmaker and chairwoman of the youth loan program, along with other officials at the agency, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Home grown organizations like Seed Ventures and Planet N Pvt. are attempting to change the status quo. Young Pakistanis that Khan meets at university roadshows are often resistant to becoming entrepreneurs.

They say “it’s risky, there’s a chance of failure, there’s a lack of access to finance and we’ve got great expectations from our parents to actually become doctors, engineers, lawyers and that is a safer option,” Khan said, whose firm, Seed Ventures, has invested 78 million rupees ($745,000), supporting 135 startups. “That’s the cultural mindset.”

According to Planet N, of the more than 700 startups that were established since 2010, 67 percent are still active and 68 have managed to raise funding of about $20 million. At least 24 incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces supporting startups have popped up across the country in the past seven years.

Despite the growth of incubators and accelerators, startups will continue to stumble without wider access to seed finance, said Nadeem Hussain, the founder of Planet N. While his firm has invested $8 million in 41 companies, most of them startups, he estimates that at least $1 billion of seed money is needed in Pakistan to help new businesses take the next step.

“They teach you, they mentor you, but when you come out there’s no capital,” said the 61-year-old Hussain, a financier who built Tameer Microfinance Bank Ltd. before selling it to Telenor ASA last year. “Unless we can address that, people are going to turn away from entrepreneurship because of the high failure rate.”

The old way of thinking is being challenged at centers that are popping up across Pakistan. The Nest i/o, which opened in Karachi about two and a half years ago, looks just like the incubators found in Silicon Valley. In a high-rise with views across the city of 20 million, millennials hunch over laptops in a colorful open-plan office littered with foosball tables and beanbags.

Founder, Jehan Ara, took inspiration from visits to incubation centers in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. Gaining about $1.4 million in grants from Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Samsung Electronics Co. and the U.S. State Department, about 100 startups have come through the center’s four-month cycle. About 85 percent of those are continuing to survive.

Among the businesses that have been through The Nest are a provider of flat-pack homes for refugee camps and one that makes engraving machines that are a fraction of the price of imported ones, said Ara. Social Champ, a mobile app which simultaneously posts on different social media platforms, caught the eye of venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, who has invited the founder to Silicon Valley, she said.

“A lot of kids have started thinking startups, which is a good thing,” Ara, who calls herself the Nest’s “Big Bird,” said in her office decorated with soft toys, candy and entrepreneurial and motivational text books. “It’s a shift, it started three to four years ago when kids started taking work online.”

Business Conglomerate Schon Group buys #Pakistan #PSL #Multan #cricket franchise for a hefty $41.6 million

https://www.techjuice.pk/schon-group-buys-psl-multan-for-a-hefty-41...

One of the richest families of Pakistan, Schon Group has bought the newly added Multan team in Pakistan Super League after successful bid at Pakistan Cricket Board. The Schon Group will be paying a hefty $41.6 million in a period of 8 years for this contract. This acquisition, of $5.2 million per year, turns out to be the biggest one in the history of Pakistan Super League.

Currently, Schon Group is managed by his two sons who look after day-to-day affairs in Dubai HQ. Khizer Schon has recently made several investments in the YCombinator’s technology startups and aims to invest in Pakistani technology businesses through their investment arm Schon Ventures. Schon Ventures is the group investment vehicle which has invested in fitness, transportation, real estate, and technology start-ups.

While speaking at the PSL auction, Asher Schon said,
“We believe we have all the resources available to make this (investment) a successful venture.”

What happened at Google IO Extended 2017 Karachi

By Samrah Syed 

https://www.techjuice.pk/google-io-extended-2017-karachi/

Google I/O’17 Extended kicked off in Karachi on August 5 at IBA City Campus. Google I/O is an annual developer conference held by Google in San Francisco, California and brings together developers from around the globe to focus on exploring the next generation of tech.

Seeing the need of the tech community integration in Karachi, GDG Kolachi brought the conference to Karachi whilst delivering rich content through tech talks, code labs and live demos to a diverse audience of techies.

I attended Google I/O for the first time and it was an experience that I won’t forget anytime soon. Being a student from NED University of Engineering and Technology on my path to development, as well as being an organizer at GDG Kolachi, this not only opened doors for me to network with some of the Tech Gurus in Pakistan but also caught me up to date with the Google’s latest technologies.

This year Google announced a ton of stuff such as what’s next for Android and other platforms. Here is a sneak peek of the event with my lens.

The event kicked off with a keynote by Khurram Jamali. Jamali, Country Lead at Google, Pakistan. Jamali motivated the audience by his story and gave the summary of the I/O from the Pakistani market perspective. Going on, Eric Bhatti, Manager GDG Kolachi talked about what’s new in Android.

Bhatti’s session was followed by Asadullah Yousuf, from TPS Worldwide, who made an app in less than 19 minutes using flutter, a mobile app SDK designed to help developers and designers build modern mobile apps for iOS and Android. That was something that gained a huge applause.

The talks continued with Jehan Ara telling the Pakistan Start-Up story and Umair Khan from 10Pearls sharing a talk on Database on fire. Sadaffe Abid, Co-founder CIRCLE brought some diversity by conveying the role of Women Techmakers and She Loves Tech. To add to a little more diversity in the topics, Atyab Tahir, Head of Digital Transformation at HBL talked about financial services Nexus.

More speakers were lined up. Mehdi Raza built a really cool app with Google Assistant that essentially requires no coding! Sohaib Khan gave a talk on designing better voice experiences for Google Assistant. Harris Solangi, co-manager at GDG Kolachi, demonstrated how easy it is to develop intelligent applications using the ML APIs that Google offers.

The long day of talks came to an end with the closing by Junaid Iqbal, MD Careem who talked about the Future of Technology in Pakistan.

The diversity of the tech talks was something that no doubt added to the richness of the conference. As one of the attendees said, “It was a great experience. I was introduced to new technology by Google that I didn’t know about before.”

A few important announcements were also made at the event.

The API.AI challenge by Google, so if you have an up to beat idea, start making an assistant app now to participate in the challenge.
GDG Kolachi will also be setting up a local API.AI challenge. So If you are making an assistant app, also share it with GDG Kolachi by emailing at hello@gdgkolachi.com. The best apps will be evaluated and will get a prize at GDG Devfest.
Organizations can support the initiative of GDG Kolachi as well: https://goo.gl/vJDZSp
Google Developers Group are Google sponsored communities of techies and coders who work together to promote learning and development in the tech field, through events like Google I/O.

The DeanBeat: 3 Pakistani brothers ensure mobile game chat isn’t lost in translation

https://venturebeat.com/2017/08/18/the-deanbeat-3-pakistani-brother...


Game developers can grow up anywhere these days.these days, and the latest example of that are the Zaeem brothers from Pakistan. Saad, Ammar, and Shayan have created two startups: one that makes mobile games, and a new venture that is creating a platform for multilingual chat in games.

The startups have created jobs in their hometown in Lahore, Pakistan, and Silicon Valley. Their successes are modest by the valley’s standards. But growing up in their part of the world, they overcame a lot of odds and made a rare successful tech and game startup in a fast-moving industry. I met them at a party at the Seattle Aquarium at the game event Casual Connect USA, and their story intrigued me. I met them again at a coffee house in Palo Alto, California, and I listened.

Their Pakistan company, Caramel Tech Studios, has been making mobile games since 2011, and they are creating a new San Francisco startup, Fizz, that promises to do real-time translation for text chat in mobile games. Saad is heading that effort, and he has moved to Silicon Valley to raise money and build the company’s connections to others.

The brothers credit their entrepreneurial spirit to their father, who’s in textiles and taught them about startups and business. In the late 1990s, when Saad was 14 and Ammar was 12, they learned how to create websites. One company hired them for $700 or so, and that was a lot of money for young Pakistani entrepreneurs. Their parents “acquired” their company and urged them to stay in school.

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And that story is replaying everywhere where people grow up playing games, study technology, and try to create their own businesses. Part of the inspiration is Silicon Valley’s fairy tale rags-to-riches stories, and part is the desire to play and learn how to build games.

“Back in the ’80s and ’90s, families wanted their children to become medical doctors,” Ammar said. “Now it’s engineering.”

Their lives have been full of lucky breaks, made more frequent by their dedication. Ammar was interested in investing in stocks. Saad, the oldest, joined a startup without a salary. He helped the business grow and get work for hire. Then the brothers set up their own company, making software and games for hire. Halfbrick Studios, the Australian game company that made Fruit Ninja, gave the Zaeem brothers their lucky break. It hired them to build a version of Fruit Ninja for the Nokia Symbian phone platform.

“The biggest problem we had was having the cash flow to take bigger risks,” Ammar said.

The Halfbrick deal enabled them to boost the company to 22 people in Lahore, which had a good university that produced technical graduates. The Halfbrick job led to more work with Kabam, a mobile game company that made hits such as Kingdoms of Camelot. Andrew Sheppard, then head of studios for Kabam, put Caramel Tech Studios to work on a mobile card strategy game, Order of Elements. The studio then worked for Animoca, a Hong Kong company, to build an Astro Boy mobile game.

Apple liked the idea of a game company in Pakistan, and it featured the title that the brothers made. One of their games, Blades of Battle, has been featured by Apple in 137 countries.

After a while, Caramel Tech Studios started making its own games. That was like moving up the food chain, and it led to more deals. Then Saad stepped down as CEO in 2016 and started the effort to build the chat platform.

#US-based 1839 Ventures partners with #PTIB to launch $20m #Pakistan-focused #VC fund. #Punjab #Lahore #Technology

https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/1839-ventures-partners-with-...

Punjab Information and Technology Board (PITB) of Pakistan has partnered with US-based investment firm 1839 Ventures to launch a $20 million venture capital fund for the technology startups in Pakistan. “1839 Ventures announces its international expansion and the start of a $20-million venture capital fund that will be dedicated to investing in technology-oriented startups operated by exceptional entrepreneurs who are based across Pakistan,” the company said, in a social media post. Austin-based 1839 Ventures specialises in Series A, early stage and growth capital investments in technology oriented companies working in commerce, communication and business intelligence. It invests primarily in Texas-based companies. The announcement was made last week by the venture capital firm at the Atx+Pak Launch Entrepreneurship Program launch ceremony in Austin city. Pakistan has been trying to boost its local entrepreneurship base. Earlier in May, Pakistan’s federal government announced that it will set up a $20 million venture capital fund for local startups. The startup programme was to be open to all startups – not just in IT – since Pakistan needs innovative startups in all sectors such as agri, textiles, logistics, and manufacturing, Pakistan’s Planning Commission Member Athar Osama had said in a blog post at the time. In June, Lakson Investment was granted Pakistan’s first venture capital licence in the South Asian nation. Its application for a private equity and venture capital fund had been approved by Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan last year. Lakson had set up Lakson Investment Private Equity (LI PE) in the end of 2014 and is still in its pre-launch phase. It had proposed to start making investments by late 2017.

Read more at: https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/1839-ventures-partners-with-...

Can Pakistan become Asia’s start-up hub?
Published in Mar-Apr 2017
By Nabeel A. Qadeer
How collaborative efforts by the Government and private sector can help boost Pakistan's entrepreneurial ecosystem.


http://aurora.dawn.com/news/1141953

Dr Umar Saif, who leads the department, has made it his mission to turn Lahore into our own Silicon Valley. As a first step, Plan9, a technology incubator (named after the first free-share operating software by Bell Labs) was launched in 2012. With the completion of its eighth incubation cycle, 130-plus start-ups have come up, some with net valuations ranging between six and $10 million. Collectively, they have made a sizable contribution to the IT job market.

How important has this incubator been in shaping the local scene? More importantly, what role has the State played in this?


To answer this, it is important to first analyse the factors which have hampered entrepreneurial evolution in Pakistan. Firstly, the people of Pakistan are risk-averse. From a young age, children are instructed to opt for mainstream career choices, such as engineering, medicine and teaching; the reason being the social status attached and the income flow these professions promise. Secondly, a typical household has limited capital funds available and these are not enough to allow young people to become involved in activities such as entrepreneurship, which are deemed risky. Therefore, entrepreneurship has not been a career option much experimented with, prior to the setting up of Plan9.

Taking into account these factors, the Government of Punjab decided to provide solutions. At first, through the IT Board and Plan9, the Government introduced the concept of ‘business incubation’. As the initiative was government backed, it was perceived as credible. In contrast, services offered by a new sector or by lesser known agents may be categorised as potential scams. In addition, the Government has a national outreach. As the message was spread, a new narrative was shaped.

Conceptually, entrepreneurship began to be embedded in the minds of young people and incubation became a new buzzword. This was furthered by Plan9’s efforts to encourage universities to replicate the incubation model. As a result, entrepreneurship received attention from academia as well. At present, 20 universities across Pakistan have set up incubators in collaboration with Plan9.


---------


The Plan9 experience brought to the fore the need for yet another platform aimed at further refining graduate start-ups. The six months incubation programme turns a start-up from a business idea to a scalable model. However, it needs to be polished in order to become a company. As a result, PlanX, a technology accelerator was launched to bridge that gap. To date, PlanX has produced 30 start-ups and raised an investment of three million dollars. In a nutshell, the Government has the scope to practise ‘horizontal integration.’

Expanding the playing field to make these efforts more encompassing, the Punjab Government has launched additional initiatives powered by the IT Board. ‘Herself’ is a capacity building platform for aspiring women entrepreneurs that has trained a 100 women over a period of six months. By introducing alternate home-based economic participation models, Herself aims to increase the female labour force participation rate that stands at a low 25% (source: World Bank, 2014). Techhub Connect is a co-working space for freelancers and bridges the gap between academia and industry. Recently the e-Rozgaar scheme has launched 40 training centres across Punjab aimed at providing a three month training programme to 10,000 individuals in one year.

Tech Parks planned in Pakistan:

Turkey has agreed to establish two technological parks in Pakistan for development of industrial and agriculture sectors. One park will be set up in Mardan and the other in Quetta. A spokesman of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government told Radio Pakistan that a memorandum of understanding has been signed recently by a Turkish company.
He said the establishment of Techno Parks will help in the reviving sick industrial units and promote livestock. The government of Pakistan-envisaging its vision to become a top 25 global economy and join the league of upper-middle income countries by 2025 with ‘Pakistan Vision 2025’-is reportedly fully geared up to establish information technology (IT) park in Islamabad. In this connection, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication has invited request for proposals (RFP) for procurement of consultancy services for undertaking environmental impact assessment (EIA) for technology park development project Islamabad.
According to the RFP document, the project site is situated in Chak Shahzad, 8km away from Islamabad. The project site includes an area of 60,000m2 while the total size of technology park area would be 190,000m2.—Agencies

https://pakobserver.net/turkey-agrees-establish-two-technological-p...

The NIC Lahore picks up from its previous manifestation as the LUMS Centre for Entrepreneurship (LCE), established in May 2014 with the mission to discover, groom, and develop high-growth, high-impact companies. Till date, LCE has incubated 78 companies, 17 of which have raised close to US$4 million in seed funding and are currently valued at US$20 million. It has also created 1,500 direct employment opportunities and another 5,000 jobs were created through vendors and suppliers.

https://www.techjuice.pk/national-incubation-center-lahore-inaugura...


------------------

The National Incubation Center (NIC) Lahore was inaugurated by Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecommunications, Ms. Anusha Rahman Khan at a ceremony held at Lahore University of Management Sciences on December 23, 2017.

The event began with a welcome address by the Vice Chancellor of LUMS, Prof. Dr. S. Sohail H. Naqvi, who welcomed the esteemed guests and shared his immense delight at the launch of this state-of-the-art facility.

With justifiable pride, he said “The establishment of NIC at LUMS is a tremendous milestone on a journey we at LUMS embarked on when the LUMS Center of Entrepreneurship (LCE) was established in 2014. At that, we dared to set a vision for ourselves to become the largest breeding ground for sustainable, high-growth commercial and high-impact social ventures in Pakistan. The establishment of the NIC allows us an accelerated implementation of this vision. Building on the success of LCE, we are extremely excited to provide young Pakistani entrepreneurs an enhanced and expanded opportunity to nurture their business ambitions.”

Addressing the audience, Mr. Yusuf Hussain, CEO Ignite, spoke of the role of National Incubation Centres in the knowledge economy of Pakistan and how these would become breeding grounds for sustainable growth and drive Pakistan’s economy forward with 4th Industrial wave technologies. Sharing his thoughts, he said,

“For corporations, this is a singular opportunity to transform and thrive in this age of global competition and change by partnering with and invest in start-ups that solve meaningful problems. With the track record of its management team, Makerspace, Design Lab, deep R&D resources, and organic VC linkages, NIC Lahore is poised to graduate true 10x start-ups and become one of the best incubators in Asia.”

During the event, Director NIC Lahore, Mr. Faisal Jalil Sherjan shared the vision and mission of NIC Lahore and took the audience through the facilities offered at the new center. He highlighted that NIC Lahore will house the first-ever Makers Lab in Pakistan, a modern facility equipped with the latest technologies and smart equipment to bring ideas to life. He further added that this 23,000 square feet space will not only house the incubator and accelerator but will also provide business acceleration services to incubated companies, a Smart Lab, a Design Thinking Lab, a Usability Lab, various libraries and an in-house auditorium.

“NIC Lahore will be more than just an incubation space. It will foster creativity, design and encourage its selected incubates to develop companies that have high growth potential. We have everything here in terms of physical requirements and when allied with the immense intellectual capital LUMS has on campus, many winners will emerge from this facility,” added Mr.Sherjan.

Once a struggling startup, now a success story
Technology
by Sarfraz Ali | Published on January 25, 2018 ��

The serial entrepreneur, mentor, co-author of “New Success Secrets”, “L.E.G Formula” and the founder of Global Social Entrepreneurship Foundation, Muhammad Siddique, compiled data on such projects, says the Momentum Tech Conference 2018 has even more opportunities for the enterprises from its last year’s edition. He says the enterprise world is ready to help the Pakistani entrepreneurs to say goodbye to their excuses. “This year, Fortune 500 mentors and representatives of world’s top online brands will be in Pakistan to help startups,” he said.

Of the long list of the online startups, there is the Nearpeer.org. This is an online professional courses portal where the users can learn at a self-directed pace. The startup won the second prize at the Momentum Tech Conference 2017. Its co-founder Ammar Ali Ayub who with his friend, tried to be a job provider while graduating from LUMS. Now, he has a team of 25 people and provides jobs to many dozen people. Ammar’s advice to startups is: never give up.

Ali Gohar Wassan is the co-founder of TheUniPedia, an online portal for universities entry test preparations with self-assessment, explanations and dedicated tutors to enhance the learning level of students. Ali Gohar is himself is a university dropout but he saw an opportunity in directing the people to the university education, and in the process now he provides jobs to hundreds of tutors and a full-time seven people team. Ask him about his secret to success, and smiles: have mentors, leave out excuses and be fair to yourself. He says meetups like Momentum Tech Conference are never to be missed. “It is the venue where from we got payment solutions and universities connections.

Also, at the conference will be Sehat.com.pk Marketing Director Bilal Mumtaz. His online medicine supply is a real breakthrough in Pakistan’s health system. The startup came into being when his project won a $150,000 seed money from a Canadian university, and since then the project has achieved many landmarks and has faced and overcome critical issues like fake medicine supplies. His priority is to provide cheap, good quality medicines to the people in rural areas at their doorstep in the quickest possible way. His secret success is: my network is my net-worth.

The online journey has brought Hyder Khan to Hyderabad from his hometown Badin. This under-30 startup star is running two projects: one, software development and two, accounting consultancy. Just one year ago, he had invested Rs5,000 in his online business and now, he has a team of six people for both businesses.

Qasim Asad Salam’s TheCampusFeed.com is also a new rage among the university students. The idea emerged when this LUMS student was in the final year and had been finding very hard to connect with other students. He thought of connecting with other students through a social network where everyone could speak on any issue maintaining anonymity. The idea was realized into a reality when it won a Rs300,000 prize at the Momentum Tech Conference 2017. That was a great push, and now the project is being run by six people. His advice to the struggling enterprises: be passionate, do not chase money and be extremely hardworking.

Last but not least stands Sameer Ahmed Khan whose application SocialChamp.io won the first prize at Momentum Tech Conference 2017. This application caters to need all social media users. His story and struggle are very inspirational. A spate of failures did not deter him from working again and again and at the end of the day, he met with success. Such success stories and connections are learned and earned at the events like Momentum Tech Conference. This year, the event is going to be held on February 19 and 20 in Karachi.

https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/technology/once-a-struggling-startu...

Ideas meet investments: Momentum Pakistan 2018 kicks off in Karachi

https://www.brecorder.com/2018/02/20/400051/ideas-meet-investments-...


Startups, entrepreneurs, tech giants, social media stars, musicians; Momentum’18, one of Pakistan’s biggest tech conference, had it all covered under one roof.

Pakistan’s most awaited tech conference, Momentum Pakistan 2018 initiated yesterday, February 19 and will also continue today, February 20. The annual event attracted numerous startups, entrepreneurs, incubators, and national and international investors. The conference also hosted number of global companies including Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and many others, of which’s delegates along with setting up their stalls, gave inspirational speeches too.

“I think this is a great platform where tech startups, investors, and IT vendors can meet and get support. My aim is to help these startups grow in Pakistan and abroad by giving them a platform,” expressed Chrystele Dumont from Microsoft.

The conference was a home for 250+ startups. Ranging from e-commerce and marketing based, to incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into everyday products and turning them into smart technology, the conference contained all.

Ignite, Qubolt, Fori Mazdoori, Botsify etc. were among the many names promoting their various products such as chat bots, holograms, robots, smart courier services and more.

The conference proved to be a great platform for women too who showcased their products. Developing smart technology such as ‘Rough Road Detection’, brain-driven ‘Intellectual Wheel Chair’, ‘Vision Detector’ for visually impaired, and ‘iSecure’ smart watches for eradicating child abduction etc. proved that women are no less than men.

“It’s time for us women to have a ripple effect and be positive,” expressed Gia Farooqui, CEO of Roshni Rides.

The Pakistani Indian, Asha Jadeja from Dot Edu Ventures also said, “Pakistan has the most exciting ecosystem that is growing. Technology is at its beginning phase here and it is developing more.”

Moreover, the conference also consisted of amazing speakers and panels from startups and from renowned firms all across the world. Asha Jadeja from Dot Edu Ventures, CEO of Foodpanda, Telenor, Careem etc., USAID representatives, Lashley Pulcifer from Hashoo Groups, Chrystele Dumont from Microsoft, were a few of the esteemed speakers that spoke on different topics regarding investments, women empowerment, Pakistani entrepreneurial ecosystem, tech startups and much more.

“Events like these are very important, they bring together everyone to inspire,” said Lashley Pulcifer, Chief Marketing Officer of Hashoo Group.

Lastly, the day was not all about speeches and promotional stalls. The event’s first day ended with a standup comedy by the popular social media star Junaid Akram where he left the audience laughing. It was followed by a concert from the ‘Call’ that marked a perfect ending to the first day of Momentum Pakistan 2018.

Talking about the event, Junaid Akram said, “This is a platform to bring startups together. Things like these are not highlighted in Pakistan, and events like these bring everyone under one roof, bridging investors and creators.”

National Incubation Center Karachi inaugurated at NED University by PM

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Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has inaugurated the National Incubation Center (NIC) Karachi at the launch ceremony held at NED University of Engineering & Technology on 11th May.

The event kicked off with a panel discussion moderated by Murtaza Zaidi, Director NIC Peshawar. The panelists included Jehan Ara – President at P@SHA, Faisal Sherjan – Program Director at NIC Lahore, Neelam Azman – Innovation Intervention Specialist at Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF), and Adnan Shahid, Chief Commercial Officer at PTCL. The panel discussion explored the potential of NICs to ignite and strengthen the local entrepreneurial ecosystem of the country.

Jehan Ara believes that successful exit stories will help attract investors to inject more finance in the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. While sharing success stories of their respective incubators, Jehan and Sherjan identified that Pakistani millennials are passionate to solve social problems with entrepreneurship. Be it education, healthcare or social inclusion, young entrepreneurs of the country relate to grassroots problems and are driven to solve them.

With incubators being the guiding force, these startups are smart enough to figure out the right way. Sherjan highlighted that it is essential to expose “Generation Z” to the driving factors behind fourth industrial revolution such as machine learning and AI. Summer programs launched by NIC Lahore and The Nest I/O are putting rigorous efforts to provide that tech entrepreneurial exposure to teenagers.