Karandaaz signs four grant agreements with the four winners of the FinTech Disrupt Challenge 2017.

Karandaaz is Pakistan’s best and leading technology and inclusion platform that aims to find out the talented, amazing and distinctive startup ideas across the Pakistan that can help initiate a positive change in the society.

The event of signing the grant agreements was held at Islamabad where the CEO of Karandaaz Pakistan, Mr. Ali Sarfaraz signed the agreements with the winners of FDC 2017.

These included the CreditFix.  It is the winner of FDC  2017 and was founded by Owais Zaidi. Karandaz decided to grant the startup with the amount of USD $100,000.

The runner ups who include Agri-Gate by Saad Tamman, UniKrew Solution by Naveed Tejani, Syed Taha Ali, and Muhammad Naveed Shareef, and Invoice Wakalah by Muhammad Waseem Sheikh were also granted  but for them it was  USD $20,000 each.

Karandaaz had invited people from all across Pakistan to take part in FDC 2017 from fields like financial services, payments, e-commerce, interoperability, and early stage ideas related to mWallet use cases, education of financial services through technology, customer engagement/experience, micro credit, and digital savings.

Also banks, government regulators, incubators, and complimentary actors from the FinTech industry were present at the event  to witness the win and ideas of the shortlisted participants. The competition grew tough as the participants put forth the ideas in front of the judges.

The CEO of Karandaaz Mr. Ali was of the view,

“We are confident that the grants we have released today will help these promising start-ups go to market and change Pakistan’s financial services landscape for the better.

The FinTech Disrupt Challenge is a remarkable platform through which we give emerging and aspiring fin-tech players of Pakistan an opportunity to materialize their passion of promoting financial inclusion in the country. I wish CreditFix, Invoice Wakalah, UniKrew, and ‘Agrigate’ the very best of luck for the future.”

Karandaaz Pakistan is trying to improve the life style of people and solving many financial problems of Pakistan. Thus to fulfill the aim FDC was created.

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Growth Capital Investment in Techlogix

Non profit financial firm Karandaaz Pakistan has signed an agreement with Techlogix to invest USD 1.5 million in the company with the vision to scale three new cloud-based verticals – Business Management Software for higher education institutions; Hospital Management Information Systems; and Mobility Information Management System for large scale sales, distribution and field forces. This growth capital investment is funded by United Kingdom Department for International Development (UKAid).

Nowadays Software as a Solution (SaaS) is approaching 30% of total application spend – the total cloud market cap is projected to grow to USD 180 billion by 2018 from less than USD 25 billion in 2008 at a compound annual growth rate of 22%.1

Techlogix will initially be focusing on scaling AlmusNet, a campus on cloud solution for higher education institutions. The need for higher education is increasing exponentially in the developing countries and with it, there is an growing need for effective automation in processes at universities and colleges.

This demand is currently met mostly by home-grown solutions that are not cost-effective, lack scalability and do not allow for integration across functions. AlmusNet is a complete solution for colleges and universities to manage their administrative, policy, enrollment, academic, financial and community portals in a cost effective mobile platform.

Mr. Ali Sarfraz, CEO at Karandaaz Pakistan said,

“We are extremely pleased to have signed our first growth capital investment deal with Techlogix after conducting a rigorous due diligence process, and are confident that this investment will provide good returns to Karandaaz. I would like to thank United Kingdom for International Development (UKAid) for their generous support and look forward to concluding three to four additional deals by 2018 end.”

Mr. Asad Azfar, Chief Investment Officer at Karandaaz Pakistan, at the signing ceremony said,

“We are excited at Karandaaz Capital to complete our first growth capital investment and begin a strategic partnership with Techlogix Pakistan and Techlogix International Limited. Techlogix is a leading Pakistan-based technology solutions provider with a global client base.”.

“Techlogix is delighted to work with Karandaaz in our exciting evolution from a pure IT services company to a portfolio of product investments,”

said Mr. Salman Akhtar, co-founder and CEO of Techlogix, at the occasion.

He further said, We look added than 100 resources to our team in 2016 and with Karandaaz’s financial commitment in 2017, we look forward to continuing this journey.

Karandaaz Pakistan, a not-for- profit company established in August 2014, promotes access to finance for small and mid-size businesses through a commercially directed investment platform, and financial inclusion for individuals by promoting technology enabled digital solutions.

Techlogix is an IT Services provider with over 20 years of experience in Enterprise IT projects. The company has a track record of innovation in product engineering with core expertise in large enterprise solutions.

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Karandaaz Pakistan, Planet N Group of Companies and Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) joined hands to host a workshop under title of “Challenges in the Startup Eco-system in Pakistan”.

The aim of the workshop was to being together entrepreneurs so that they can share ideas. Workshop wanted to connect entrepreneurs on the path to commercialization with industry experts. The workshop proved to be successful. As the participants came to know about common challenges faced by startups and with discussion easy solutions were suggested. The areas that were discussed are:

1) Curriculum & Awareness,

2) Company Law,

3) Role of incubators/­Accelerators and Exits & IPOs.

For the discussion of the topics groups were formed. The founder and Coach Planet of N Group, Mr. Nadeem Hussain highlighted some potential areas of improvement they can be solved by promoting entrepreneurial culture. This way it will be easy to maintain economy problems.

Mr. Ali Sarfraz the CEO of Karandaaz Pakistan said,

“Active collaboration and engagement between startups and eco-system enablers, such as incubators, accelerators and policymakers, is critical in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced by aspiring and existing entrepreneurs and developing creative solutions. We believe that this workshop organized by Karandaaz Pakistan in collaboration with Planet N and LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship will inspire scalable programs to empower youth in the region.”

At the end of the program a presentation titled “Seeding Innovation Landscape: A Framework for Rooting FinTechs in Pakistan” summarized all the findings of the report submitted by Karandaaz. Qasif Shahid presented it and discussed the possibilities and opportunities FinTech eco-system in Pakistan and the future of digital financial services in the country have.

The event was graced by presence of worthy guests that included people from public and private organizations also representatives from government sector were also present.

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When the prize of 10 million was announced for the winners of FinTech Disrupt Challenge, 2016 many were enthusiastic. It was organized by Karandaaz Pakistan in collaboration with the LUMS Centre for Entrepreneurship (LCE). Many startups were interested to participate. From 63 applications 28 startups were shortlisted by the judges’ panel that included the popular judge;

Romana Abdullah
Asad Azfar
Amaar Ikhlas
Yasser Bashir
Naeem Zamindar
Mohsin Termezy

After the selection of 28 startups the final day of FinTech Disrupt Challenge was on Sunday. All the participants were enthusiastic and presented their best ideas to judges and audience. Their ideas were about financial transaction system, the promotion of business and the selling of products etc.

At the beginning of the event LCE Executive Director Khurram Zafar addressed and welcomed everyone saying, “Access to seed capital is a major impediment to start-up growth in Pakistan. I hope that others follow suit and are able to financially support young, innovative start-ups so they can grow into large businesses of tomorrow spurring economic and jobs growth.”

On the event Pakistan Microfinance Network Board Chairman Nadeem Hussain also discussed the problems and challenges. He also gave the solutions for the financial problems. This all was discussed in the talk that was titled as ‘Unbundling Commercial Banks’. The other discussion was delivered by Qasif Shahid the CEO and founder of Finja  in which he highlighted the potential of technology and the value created by such technologies. This was named as ‘Design Mechanics for Setting up FinTech Operations in Pakistan.’

Then next day Karandaaz & LCE announced 23 Startups as the Winners of FinTech Disrupt Challenge.

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