Pakistan’s fintech TAG raises $12mln funding at $100mln valuation

KARACHI: Pakistan’s fintech TAG Innovation Pvt. received $12 million from international investors, as it eyes to enhance its digital payments business in the country, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

The funding was led by Liberty City and also included Addition LP, Mantis Venture Capital and Banana Capital LP, Bloomberg quoted Chief Executive Officer Talal Ahmad Gondal as saying.

Previous investors in the pre-seed round were Quiet Capital, Fatima Gobi Ventures. Polymath Digital doubled down in this round while Khwarizmi Ventures and the co-founder of Plaid William Hockey also participated, added the report.

The funding put the company at a valuation of $100 million.

TAG is a mobile application that allows its users to open mobile wallets and get debit cards. The app’s users can use it to perform online transactions such as money transfers, bill payments, and mobile top-up payments with a touch.

This Rawalpindi-based startup was founded by Talal Ahmad Gondal, Ahsan Khan, and Alexander Lukianchuk, and also received an undisclosed amount of pre-seed investment from regional and international investors including former executives of N26 and Revolut.

Last year in November, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) approved TAG to operate as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) in Pakistan.

“There is more demand than we had initially anticipated,” said Gondal, 29, a former executive at Amazon.com Inc. “Other than many retail customers still on the waiting list, we have also been approached by several organisations to digitise the payroll system that have been dealing in cash until now.”

Pakistan’s startup ecosystem has received a major boost this year with the arrival of high-profile investors including those backing Tag as well as Harry Stebbings’ 20 VC and Josh Buckley’s Buckley Ventures.

Pakistan's startups have been in the news every other week with companies announcing multi-million dollar funding from both series and seed funding rounds.

Pakistan's edtech startup Maqsad raises $2.1 million in pre-seed funding

Just days ago, BridgeLinx, the Lahore-based company that commenced operation nine months ago as a digital freight network, marketplace, and solutions provider, managed to raise $10 million, the country's largest seed capital investment that beat the previous $7.2 million raised by Sada Pay earlier this year.

Last month, Airlift, a transportation platform, announced it secured $85 million in the largest Series B financing in Pakistan’s startup history.