The era of VCs and boom of start-ups

“I have never seen as much genuine interest in writing cheques as I have in the last year,” says Kalsoom Lakhani, co-founder of the $15 million venture capital fund i2i Ventures. “There are so many international funds in Silicon Valley, East Asia, Middle East and other places that are realising that Pakistan is one of the most exciting places to come.”

Despite the pandemic, venture capitalist (VC) activities increased by 37 per cent to $65.6m in 2020 in Pakistan, explains Misbah Naqvi, co-founder of i2i Ventures. The fund is a sister concern of Invest2Innovate that was formed to support frontier markets in 2011 and acts as a pipeline of start-ups for i2i Ventures.