Bazaar, a Pakistan based B2B ecommerce and fintech platform has raised $70M in a Series B financing led by Dragoneer Investment Group and Tiger Global Management. Bazaar provides procurement, fulfilment, operating software, digital lending, and supply chain products to merchants and suppliers in Pakistan. This investment, which comes just 6 months after its historic Series A, takes Bazaar’s total institutional funding to over $100M, establishing it as one of the most well-capitalized startups in the country’s rapidly growing tech ecosystem.
Existing investors, including Indus Valley Capital, Defy Partners, Acrew Capital, Wavemaker Partners, B&Y Venture Partners and Zayn Capital also participated in the round.
“We are thrilled to support Bazaar’s vision of building an end-to-end commerce and fintech platform for millions of unbanked and offline merchants in Pakistan”, said Christian Jensen, Partner at Dragoneer Investment Group. “Bazaar’s pace of geographic expansion and new product development is a testament to the rare talent and culture Hamza and Saad have cultivated at Bazaar.”
Bazaar’s mission is to build an operating system for traditional retail in Pakistan. This retail economy, worth over $170B, is primarily offline and mostly served through 5 million SMEs across the country. This merchant base, which is the lifeline of Pakistan’s economy, also lacks access to formal financial services in a country that hosts the world’s third largest unbanked population. At the same time, Pakistan is undergoing a massive digital penetration wave driven by widespread availability of affordable smartphones and some of the lowest mobile broadband costs in the world. Bazaar aims to capitalize on these fundamentals by building an integrated platform of B2B offerings that can aggregate, digitize, and finance the country’s fragmented retail landscape.
Easy Khata, Bazaar’s merchant software product, has onboarded over 2.4 million businesses across 500 cities and towns in the country, recording over $10B in annualized bookkeeping transaction value.
“We believe that Pakistan is at an inflection point in its tech ecosystem development. Bazaar is tapping into the massive merchant opportunity and is leading the charge in the country. We are excited to back their incredible team and phenomenal growth in such a short span of time.” said John Curtius, partner at Tiger Global Management.
Bazaar was founded in June 2020 by Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda “We are humbled and excited to continue on the path to create a generation defining story for Pakistan. With the significant backing of two of the largest venture growth funds in the world, we believe this will continue to change the narrative on the country and inspire countless more and bigger stories in near future. This is a result of the trust and partnership of our colleagues, suppliers and most importantly our customers – the small merchants who are the backbone of our economy.” said the founders, Hamza and Saad.
With the fresh round of funding, Bazaar plans to expand into more cities across Pakistan, launch new marketplace categories, scale its lending offerings, and accelerate new product development.
