Airlift raises $85M in series B with ambitions to expand in international markets

Airlift has announced an $85 Million Series B financing led by notable investors on the globe. The financing is about twice the size of the largest private company IPO in Pakistan’s history and the highest in the MENA region.

The financing is co-led by Josh Buckley (Buckley Ventures) and Harry Stebbings (20VC). Other major participants included Sam Altman (ex-President YCombinator), Biz Stone (Co-founder at Twitter / Medium), Jeffrey Katzenberg (ex-CEO, Disney), Taavet Hinrikus (Founder/CEO at TransferWise), and Seve Pagliuca (Co-Chairman, Bain Capital).

For the uninitiated, Airlift is offering 30-minute delivery of all household essentials from a network of dark stores. From their application, customers can place orders for all household essentials (including groceries, sports, stationery, everyday electronics, etc.) and have these delivered within 30 minutes at their doorstep.

Within 12 months of launch, the team has scaled operations to 8 different cities in Pakistan, and now with $85m in Series B financing, it aims to scale operations to international markets and create almost 200K jobs in Pakistan.

Interestingly, Airlift Express alone with its series B funding of $85 Million has added 5% to Pakistan’s FDI for the Fiscal year 2021. While speaking with TechJuice, Usman Gul, founder of Airlift said,

“A year ago, Airlift halted operations on the transit service and diversified into last-mile grocery delivery. Today, our team closed $85m in Series B financing to scale our delivery platform across continents. With this financing, we as Pakistanis must return to where we started from — fighting against the odds and staying true to our core values of hustle, teamwork, resourcefulness, and bias to action. If this is the journey of a thousand miles, we have taken only the first step!”