Here are 6 Startup Graduates from Telenor Velocity 2nd Cohort

Telenor Pakistan’s accelerator program “Telenor Velocity” hosted a Graduation night in Lahore to graduate 6 startups from their Cohort 2. The event had impressed investors and encouraged them to invest on these startups.

Building relations with investors

The event attendees included venture capitalists, angel investors, expert mentors, Telenor Pakistan officials, technology leaders and key players from the startup community. Humayun Mazhar, CEO and Founder of CresVentures attended the event as the keynote speaker.

Also present on the occasion were Dr. Umar Saif – Chairman PITB, Nabeel Qadeer – Director PITB, Khurram Zafar – Founder 47 Ventures, and Faisal Sherjan – Director LCE.

The event was organized to focus on this phrase that ‘the best investments happen because of relationships.’ Graduation night, therefore, provided a platform to startups to pitch their products and converse with investors, mentors and Telenor Pakistan officials, all under one roof. The Startup Graduates got the opportunity to pitch for investments, partnerships and collaborations as well as kick start conversations that lead to stronger relationships with Investors.

The Cohort 2 graduating startups

Shopsy.pk, Pakshine, Daastan, Artsy.pk, MicropowerLabs and Perkup were the startups that pitched at the event.

Shopsy.pk is a search engine for online shopping in Pakistan where anyone can search from more than 100,000 products from Pakistan’s most trusted stores and compare prices to save money on shopping.

Pakshine converts ordinary UPS’s into Solar Hybrid UPS’s for low-cost access to solar energy.

Daastan is an enabling self-publishing platform for aspiring writers and works for the revival of Pakistani literature by connecting writers with different opportunities for career growth.

Artsy.pk is a managed marketplace for artists and artisans that helps the buyer directly connect with the makers.

Micropower Labs is a technology innovation company focused on creating next generation devices and gadgets for day to day use.

PerkUp helps businesses manage and grow themselves by helping acquire new customers, retain existing customers and manage their entire business operations.

Many of these startup graduates already raised grants previously and now they are currently at their go-to-market stage, where they have already tested their products and gained remarkable traction. Currently, Pakshine, Artsy.pk and MicrppowerLabs are looking for money injection to scale their operations and reach new customers.

What attendees had to say

“I congratulate the Velocity cohort 2 graduates and wish they make it big as they’re now equipped with what it takes to be successful in a digital marketplace,” said Irfan Wahab Khan, CEO Telenor Pakistan, while speaking at the event.

“I am positive that the purpose of organizing this Graduation Night was effectively met with startup founders pitching their products to important people and networking with them, exchanging ideas, and strengthening Pakistan’s startup community. With programs like Velocity, we at Telenor Pakistan will continue our efforts to develop and nurture digital entrepreneurs in the country and make the best of our contributions to reinforce the digital ecosystem that we have built and promoted here.”

“Our experience with Telenor Velocity accelerator program has been absolutely fantastic,” said Usama Arjumand, Co-Founder Shopsy.pk, while sharing his thoughts at the event.

“Velocity helped market Shopsy to over 2 million online shoppers nationwide through SMS campaigns, connected us to some amazing people in Pakistan’s startup community, and helped us raise investment to scale our startup. I would recommend any serious startup seeking acceleration to join the Velocity program.”

Telenor Velocity’s success

The Graduation Night marks the official graduation of these Startup Graduates from Telenor Velocity’s program. To date, the program has helped its startups reach out to millions of potential customers from the 40 million customer base of Telenor Pakistan, connect with more than 30 mentors, and collectively enable them to raise funding that amounts up to $650K USD.

Applications for Telenor Velocity’s Cohort 3 are now open. Their go-to-market offerings to startups include office hours with the finest mentors, access to investors from all across Pakistan, co-working space, access to 40 million customers, online payment solutions and a chance to pitch for seed funding of USD 10,000 to Telenor Pakistan.

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According to a press release, “The Startup Struggle” was held by Velocity. Velocity is a Telenor Pakistan’s accelerator program. The Startup Struggle was a powerful event that was attended by entrepreneurs and the young startups.

The event highlighted the problems like:

》Why startups fail?

》What must be done to help startups succeed in the Pakistani market?

The event was graced by four prestigious mentors.

1) Usama Shahid – ex CEO and Founder of Meri Taleem,

2) Junaid Malik – Founder of NutriNysa and Raise d’Bar,

3) Shehryar Hydri – Director of Marketing and Operations at Convo,

4) Jeremy Higgs – Co Founder of Eco-Energy.

Besides them from all across Pakistan 80 Pakistani startups related to different types of setups, joined the dynamic event.

The event activity featured the stories of entrepreneurs and startups that had experience either failure or success. They also spoke about the struggles they did to achieve their goal. Moreover they discussed recoupment. The 5 hours of the group activity did not only feature the stories but it was a great platform for people associated with entrepreneurial system of Pakistan to discuss the problems and best possible solutions for their problem in presence of mentors.

In the event the main thing that was highlighted was that the basic reasons the startups in Pakistan do not achieve popularity the success they aim for include  inadequate funding, bad launch timing, compromised quality of product, a weak business model or absence of it, and above all, lack of passion.

It is a fact that to hit it big it is important to work hard, be determined and have all necessary sources. The idea is not just enough to run a successful company.

Since years now many accelerators have sprung up in Pakistan and they a running successfully. The main reason for this is that there are many new startups and people are attracted towards the entrepreneurial field.

Telenor Velocity has made many efforts to solve issues and has helped many startups but unfortunately only dew names can be seen on the success graph. This indicates that there is a need for programs to hold more events like this to help entrepreneurs.

“Telenor Velocity” is Telenor Pakistan Startup Accelerator. The main aim of the program is to help the startups to reach market within six months. Telenor Velocity makes it possible by accessing Telenor Pakistan’s scale and assets including data analytics, retail and digital distribution network, API platform and online payments solution.

This is not the only one step taken by Telenor to promote the digital technology in Pakistan. The company has tried to take many initiatives to promote the digital technology in Pakistan and so far has remained successful over r the period of almost 12 years.

Telenor Pakistan is one of the top telecommunication services that run successfully in Pakistan. The service started in 2005 and since then it has managed to bag over 39 million subscribers. More than 2,500 employees work in the company.

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