As we have entered the 2nd quarter of 2016, let us take a look at the main events regarding the startup industry in the first quarter of 2016. In the first three months of this year, over 480 million dollars of transactions happened owing to acquisitions, and investments.
Acquisitions and Investments
- A Dutch dairy cooperative announced acquisition of Pakistani multinational giant Engro Foods Limited with a mammoth investment of nearly $460 million
- Home-grown venture, Zameen, raised 20 million dollars to expand its foot prints in Bangladesh and Middle East
- Sukoon raised an undisclosed amount of funding from CresVentures. This investment made Sukoon the highest valued startup at NEST I/O Incubator in Karachi
- PerkUp raised 150,000 dollars of investment from DotZero Ventures and CresVentures
- BabyPlanet raised an undisclosed amount of investment from multiple investors in Lahore
- Nin60, a news application, raised an undisclosed amount of investment from Umair Javed of TkXel and Raza Saeed of PakWheels
- Careem acquired Savaree for an undisclosed amount, hiring their founder, Madeeha, as product lead for Pakistan
The investment & acquisition details made public clearly show the lack of trust by up coming startup founders. A huge chunk of startups that raised investment last year also preferred to not disclose investment amounts. Something we discussed in a recent interview with CresVentures.
Startups & Entrepreneurship Programs
Almost 50 startups entered the market through different business incubation and acceleration programs in the country and almost same number of startup founders entered these business incubation centers.
- OPEN Karachi launched its incubation center in Karachi
- Telenor launched a business acceleration program named as Velocity
- Founder Institute graduated 11 startups in their first ever batch in Islamabad
- Serendipity, a business acceleration program launched in Islamabad
- Aman foundation’s Healthcare accelerator was launched in Karachi
Some news and opinions that caught everyone’s attention
- Pakistani Google Play Appstore contains spam and ridiculous titles
- Only in Pakistan, startups jumps from one incubator to another incubator for an office space
- Usman Riaz’s Glassdoor campaign becomes the most funded Pakistani Kickstarter project
- Rocket Internet’s Tripda, a carpooling service, exits Pakistani market
- Government of Austin initiates an Entrepreneurs exchange program with Pakistan
- Pakistan’s first 4G only SIM launched by Zong
- NetSol, one of Pakistan’s premier software services company, celebrates 20 years
- How startups can make the most of their time in incubators
- Uber launches in Pakistan
- Invest2Innovate shares an insight on how much impact the accelerator has been so far
