Pakistan-based Bazaar, a B2B e-commerce and FinTech platform, has secured $70m in its Series B funding round, as it looks to expand its suite of digital products.
The round was led by Dragoneer Investment Group and Tiger Global Management. Other backers to the round include Valley Capital, Defy Partners, Acrew Capital, Wavemaker Partners, B&Y Venture Partners and Zayn Capital.
Bazaar plans to expand into more cities across Pakistan, launch new marketplace categories, scale its lending offerings and accelerate product development.
Bazaar was founded in 2020 and is aimed at creating an operating system for traditional retail in Pakistan. It claims the retail economy is worth over $170bn, is primarily offline and mostly served through five million SMEs across the country. The country also lacks access to formal financial services, with it the third largest unbanked population.
At the same time, the country is undergoing a massive digital penetration wave driven by widespread availability of smartphones and low broadband costs. As a result, Bazaar provides an integrated platform of B2B offerings that aggregate, digitise and finance the retail landscape, it said.
Its flagship product, Easy Khata, gives merchants a core system to digitise procurement, inventory management, customer engagement, accounting and lending. It has onboarded over 2.4 million businesses across 500 cities and towns.
In a joint statement, Bazaar founders Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda said, ?We are humbled and excited to continue on the path to create a generation-defining story for Pakistan. With significant backing of two of the largest venture growth funds in the world, we believe this will continue to change the narrative on the country and inspire countless more and bigger stories in near future.
?This is a result of the trust and partnership of our colleagues, suppliers and most importantly our customers the small merchants who are the backbone of our economy.span>
This capital injection comes just six months after the company raised $30m, which was the largest Series A funding round in Pakistan. The company has raised a total of $100m in funding. It claims to be one of the most well-capitalised startups in Pakistan.
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