Indus Valley Capital Raises $17.5 million to Invest in Pakistani Startups

Pakistan-focused venture capitalist, Indus Valley Capital (IVC) has raised $17.5 million for its maiden fund, MENAbytes reported.

Indus Valley Capital, founded and led by a former LinkedIn executive, Aatif Awan, in early 2019, had a target size of $15 million. It was oversubscribed with over 75 individual investors from all around the world, and with its final close, the company has become the largest closed fund focused on Pakistan, the news report added.

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The investors in this debut fund include Co-founder Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, along with founders, executives, and operators from leading technology companies, including Facebook, Google, Stripe, Coinbase, Uber, Careem, InstaCart, LinkedIn, Reddit, Dropbox, Atlassian, WebFlow, Zillow and Oracle.

IVC also has three unicorn founders, but the company did not disclose their names. A statement issued by IVC said, “Partners at two multi-billion dollar VC funds and early investors in Careem and Souq are also among the limited partners.”

IVC is sector-agnostic and invests in pre-seed, seed, and Series A startups. It has led or co-led investments in transportation, logistics, B2B retail, fitness, fintech, and remote work sectors.

IVC’s first investment, Airlift, had raised $12 million in a Series A, followed by another $10 million in an extension of its Series A funding round. Another startup, Bazaar, a B2B e-commerce platform, raised $6.5 million in one of the largest seed rounds of the region, had its first cheque come from IVC when the venture capitalist led Bazaar’s $1.3 million pre-seed in June 2020.

Indus Valley Capital spends two weeks (after the first pitch) on average to share a term sheet with the startups it wants to invest in. “Speed is a defining characteristic of startups that turn out to be rocket ships. When we find a potential rocketship, we drop everything else and focus on wrapping up the fundraising process quickly so the founders can get back to building the company,” Awan explained.

Usman Gul, the Co-founder and CEO of Airlift, thinks that Indus Valley Capital is bringing a wave of venture capital aligned with the global venture playbook.

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He said, “In our case, IVC has been a true partner in authoring the right fundraising strategy at every stage of the business, from early-stage angel financings to late-stage rounds.”

Saad Jangda, the Co-founder of Bazaar, said about Awan, “[His] friendliness is the biggest highlight for us. He’s always a phone call away for anything that we need to talk about (or even rant, if needed).”