Retail intelligence startup DealSmash raises USD 150,000

Retail intelligence startup, DealSmash has announced today that it has secured seed funding of USD150,000 from an Angel investment firm Al Hilal Securities Advisors. The injected amount will be used to provide retail brands and retailers with valuable insights on consumer behavior.

DealSmash is a retail intelligence tech start-up in Pakistan. At the heart of the company is its namesake mobile app, DealSmash. Using Artificial Intelligence the app aims to provide users with targeted offers on products based on their interests and buying patterns. Shoppers earn free shopping vouchers and cash-back by scanning valid shopping receipts via the app. The central component of the DealSmash recommender system is an intelligent, adaptive software-based system that can learn, both offline and online, the preferences, shopping behavior, geographic attributes and demographics of the customer base, in return providing a personalized shopping experience to each customer by suggesting only relevant offers to his or her mobile device in a context and location-aware manner.

DealSmash collects and analyses the shopping data from the shopping receipts to provide brands with valuable consumer insights.

The startup was founded in 2016 and has already won a grant of USD 88k from Government of Pakistan’s National Technology Fund (Ignite) to develop its recommender system.

Speaking at the occasion, Ali Hasnain Shah, CEO of DealSmash said,

“We enable consumers as well as retail brands to make better and informed decisions. This funding will enable us to scale as well as strengthen our product and technology. It will also enable us to upgrade our data analytics platform for sharing consumer insights with brands”.

Al Hilal Securities Advisors (pvt.) Limited is part of the Al Hilal Group that specializes in providing Shariah compliant investment solutions to a diverse base of clientele locally and internationally. Recently Al Hilal has started funding startups in the field of Technology, Food, and other growth sectors. Speaking at the occasion, Faraz Younus Bandukda, CFA the Group Chief Executive at Al-Hilal stated:

“We’re really excited about DealSmash product, its team and the opportunity in Retail market in Pakistan; which is one of the fastest growing market in the region.”

Zaheeruddin Khalid, CFA one of the sponsors of Al Hilal (who is also Chief Investment Officer at Jadwa Investment, a leading Saudi Arabian investment management firm) added, “DealSmash is an exciting breakthrough for retail brands as well as customer- conscious retailers who, by using the power of Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, can connect directly with their customers and give them what they need, when they need it”.

“It’s really heartening to know that our funded startup DealSmash has closed a deal for next round of funding. This validated our process of evaluation and diligence in choosing technology startups at seed stage that have potential to commercialize and scale”, said AsfandYar Khan, Manager Commercialization, Ignite – National Technology Fund.”