Karachi August 23 2022: Pakistani fintech startup Mahaana Wealth Ltd. raised $2.1 million from venture capital firms Vostok Emerging Finance Ltd. and SparkLabs Group, as well as local insurer IGI Holdings, riding a surge in investment appetite in the world’s fifth most populous nation.
The Karachi-based company will invest user funds in stocks and bonds, and plans to launch operations next month. It is targeting workers’ investment needs in a country whose personal savings rate lags significantly behind that of other countries, due to relatively high debt.
More than 50% of the population is indebted, spending 30% of monthly income on repaying debts, Mahaana founder and Chief Executive Officer Muhammad Shamoon Tariq said in a statement on Tuesday. Pakistan has an investor base numbering only about 250,000 people, or about 0.02% of its population, it said.
Pakistan is an increasingly popular destination for venture capital, grabbing about $350 million in funding for startups last year. This year, its fintech sector scored the country’s first investments from Sequoia Capital and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Strategic Investment Fund.
Mahaana is backed by Mattias Martinsson, founder of investment firm Tundra Fonder AB, where Tariq worked as portfolio manager steering investments in frontier markets such as Vietnam and Bangladesh. The company said it plans to work with strategic investor IGI Holdings, which has $100 million in assets under management, to broaden its reach through IGI’s insurance and securities.
