Comment by Riaz Haq on April 12, 2014 at 9:20pm

Here's an Express Tribune report on E-Commerce in Pakistan:

Pakistan is one of the fastest emerging e-commerce markets in the region.
The level of trust global online groups are showing in the talents of the Pakistani youth and the e-commerce industry here suggests that, in the near future, it is likely to hold a significant share in Pakistan’s economy.
Kaymu.pk, a venture of Rocket Internet, a German based internet incubator operating in Pakistan, has built a reputation in the eyes of the decision makers of its parent company within just 15 months since it began operations.
The team, which is successfully operating kaymu.pk, has been given a task to launch the same portal in 26 other countries of Europe and the Asian region.
“The level of trust by the parent company shows huge potential and bright future for the e-commerce industry in Pakistan,” said Managing Director Asian Region Kaymu.pk Ahmed Khan in an interview with The Express Tribune.
“Pakistan e-commerce industry has just started its journey and the youth is driving this sector,” he added.
Kaymu.pk launched in Pakistan in January 2013 and is known as one of the best online platforms with 600 retailers offering their products to online shoppers. Khan believes that they still have a long journey and a big market to cover.
The portal is maturing some 1,000 transactions daily with an average turnover of Rs1.2 million per day. According to Khan, around 40% of the total transactions are of the apparel and jewelry segments. Due to suspicion and other issues with using plastic for payments, more than 99% of transactions are cash-based.
Khan said that the online transaction ratio will surge once the use of plastic money becomes common and the number of smartphone users also increase with the introduction of 3G and 4G services.
The exercise for online shopping via different portals for convenient shopping is increasing with each passing day. E-commerce is now spreading and is creating its share in the overall retail segment, with small, medium and large-scale retailers becoming eager to sell their products via such portals.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/694838/expansion-e-commerce-future-brig...

http://www.kaymu.com/

http://www.rocket-internet.de/about-us

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 5, 2014 at 8:16pm

TechInAsia on Plan9 tech startuo incubator in Lahore:

Last week, Plan9 began its selection process for its biannual incubation cycle. The fourth batch saw 1,800 teams apply out of whom 20 teams will be invited to join the incubator. In addition to holding selection events in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, Plan9 also partnered with Acumen Fund to hold a joint selection program for two startups that focuses solely on social entrepreneurship. Plan9 is the brainchild of Umar Saif, an entrepreneur, technologist and innovator, whose work on grassroots technologies earned him the Young Global Leader title by the World Economic Forum and one of the top 35 young innovators in the world according to MIT Technology Review in 2011. Now, at age 35, his dream is for Pakistan’s first global startup to come through Plan9’s rapidly expanding doors. Under the watchful eye of its Program Manager, Nabeel Qadeer, Plan9 which originally started as an incubator, now also features a co-working space for freelancers called TechHub. It will soon launch an accelerator called PlanX. As Pakistan continues to find ways to grow its economy and reduce its public debt, seeking great investment opportunities that are not big infrastructure projects is a challenge. To promote local entrepreneurs, Plan9 is creating the country’s first Angel Investors Club to help support locals startups in raising much needed early stage funding.

Read more: The Plan9 effect: how one startup incubator is shaping Pakistan http://www.techinasia.com/plan9-startup-incubator-shaping-pakistan/

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 9, 2016 at 9:33pm

3 #Pakistan accelerators named among top 20 accelerators of #Asia & #Oceania. #startup #technology http://bit.ly/2ehPtjm via @techjuicepk

Gust and Fundacity recently released their Annual Asian and Oceanian Accelerator Report 2015. Three accelerators from Pakistan were featured in the top 20 active accelerators in the region – who accelerated the most startups in the past year. LUMS Centre for Entrepreneurship, PlanX and Invest2Innovate made it to the list.

This year’s report is a follow-up to the report released in 2014 and its main objective is to understand how the accelerator industry has developed in the region, how accelerators are funded and monetized, while providing insights on the direction of the industry in the near future. The report includes some very thoroughly researched statistics for which over 125 organizations were surveyed in the Asia/Oceania region, out of which 54 qualified as accelerators.

According to the report, the region saw a total investment of US $16,842,427. Australia took the lead with US $5,620,000 in investment. Not far behind was India at US $3,981,000, followed by South Korea at US $1,960,460, and China at US $1,920,000. India, however, took the lead by accelerating 568 startups in the year 2015 alone.

Going by the number of accelerated startups, this news does sound good for Pakistan. However, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. It all boils down to the issue of quality versus quantity. Right now, we have a lot of emerging startups but very few of them are targeting hot markets.

According to the survey, because of the global prominence of Fintech, Internet of Things, Health, and Education, these were the hottest markets Asian accelerators were most interested in. Apart from Health, the rest of the markets remain largely untapped by Pakistani startups. In order to understand this, compare the amount of investment raised by Pakistan’s 54 startups and that raised by China’s mere 13 startups. The need of the hours is to bring a focus towards emerging segments in order to attract international venture capitalists.

The report also featured some insights about how accelerators in the Asia and Oceania Region fund themselves in order to remain functional. 30% of accelerators reported that they either received a mix of private and public funding or were 100% publicly funded. When it comes to generating revenues, most of them, it appeared, invest a small amount in their incoming startups in exchange for some equity. 43% of Asian and Oceanian accelerators earn revenue from startup exits within the short-term (within 12 months), while 62% of them plan to earn revenue from startup exits over the long-term (12 months or longer).

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 11, 2017 at 8:00pm

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.

Comment