CDC backs Gobi's Pakistan fund
UK development finance institution CDC Group has provided an anchor commitment of undisclosed size to a Pakistan VC fund targeting $20 million from Gobi Ventures and local conglomerate Fatima Group.
Fatima Gobi Ventures was launched in 2019 and claims to be the most active investor in Pakistan. Its debut fund, Techxila, makes early-stage technology investments across financial services, logistics, education, and healthcare. It pursues a bottom line of “profit, people, and planet” that will benefit from CDC’s sustainability and impact expertise.
CDC made its first investment in Pakistan in 2015, mobilizing $157 million for the Gulpur hydropower plant and Habib Bank, the country’s largest bank. Its commitment to Fatima Gobi comes at a time of surging international participation in the local VC space, with Pakistani start-ups said to have received 70% of their funding from foreign investors during 2020 and 2021.
Gobi entered Pakistan in 2018 with a seed-stage investment in online travel services start-up Sastaticket, which claims to be the largest player in its space locally. Fatima Gobi’s key investment is Airlift, a last-mile delivery app that raised an $85 million Series B last year, supposedly the largest-ever start-up investment across the Middle East and North Africa region.
Other portfolio companies include Tajir, a B2B marketplace that raised a $17 million Series A earlier this year led by Kleiner Perkins. That was the US investor’s first Pakistan investment. Techxila also joined two seed rounds for financial technology player TAG, which also counts Andreessen Horowitz as an investor. TAG is now valued at $100 million.
“Pakistan is a key VC market for CDC, due to the depth of entrepreneurial talent in a large and growing domestic market, with numerous opportunities for delivering impact through tech-enabled business models,” Habib Yousuf, CDC’s country director for Pakistan, said in a statement.
CDC estimates VC funding in Pakistan in the first half of 2021 outstrips the previous five years combined. International interest in the country was highlighted in August, when US-based Wavemaker Partners and Defy Partners led a $30 million Series A – said to be the largest ever seen locally – for B2B marketplace Bazaar.
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