NayaPay, a Pakistan-based fintech platform, has raised US$13 million in one of the largest seed rounds in South Asia, a statement said.
The round was led by Zayn Capital, global fund manager MSA Novo and early-stage VC Graph Ventures from Silicon Valley, bringing together a diverse mix of leading global institutional and angel investors.
NayaPay’s Chief Executive Officer and Founder Danish A Lakhani said that NayaPay is empowering young Pakistani adults starting their financial journey, from students stepping into adulthood to freelancers and entrepreneurs taking an active role in managing their finances.
“In many senses, it’s a coming-of-age moment for many and our goal is to continue to innovate and build functionality to become a part of their daily lives, for the rest of their lives,” he added.
“Micro, small and medium businesses (SMBs) make up 90 per cent of the merchant-base in Pakistan and yet they are underserved when it comes to access to basic financial services,” Lakhani said.
“NayaPay Arc will provide universal payments acceptance and a range of business financial management tools to empower entrepreneurs and small business owners. The tools are intended to give business owners the visibility of their cash flows, pay suppliers and grow sales.”
“Our goal is to enable them to focus on growth while we take care of the rest. By helping small businesses harness the power of technology, we believe we can transform the Pakistani economy,” he added.
Zayn Capital Frontier’s Managing Partner and Co-Founder Faisal Aftab said that the Pakistan fintechs have the advantage of learning from peers and placing better informed strategic bets.
“We were impressed by the completeness of the vision of the founding team at NayaPay, and their differentiated platform-based strategy, first focused on servicing the needs of underbanked consumers and SMBs with specific use cases and building out from there.”
“With a proven ability to execute on the ground, the founder has an impressive track record of building and scaling businesses in Pakistan, including the country’s largest fiber broadband service (StormFiber),” Aftab said.
Graph Ventures General Partner Omar Siddiqui said that it is exciting to partner with Danish and the NayaPay team as they scale their leading digital payments platform for consumers and merchants in Pakistan.
“We have been early-stage investors in more than 300 companies over the past decade in the United States, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, and we are excited to see the mobile and fintech technology trends that have empowered consumers in these markets also emerge in Pakistan,” he added.
“NayaPay already offers the most robust solution for consumers to access next-generation financial conveniences in Pakistan, and we look forward to working with the team as they roll out new products and grow their consumer base,” Siddiqui said.
NayaPay’s CEO Danish concluded: “Customer trust is a key pillar of any platform’s success. At NayaPay, we are consumed by our obsession to simplify the lives of both consumers and merchants with our app and NayaPay Arc while supporting our customers with robust and scalable technology and fanatic customer service.”
Source: https://www.bolnews.com/business/2022/03/nayapay-raises-13m-in-seed-round/