Entrepreneur Danish Lakhani has spent a lot of the final 15 years constructing one in every of Pakistan’s largest fibre broadband suppliers – however in a job that took him on frequent visits to China, he more and more felt there was an even bigger enterprise alternative to discover. Now NayaPay, the fintech platform that he launched to again that imaginative and prescient, has raised $13 million in one of many largest ever seed fundraising rounds in South Asia.
NayaPay is a two-sided funds platform. It provides customers a approach to make a broad vary of funds by smartphone, in addition to offering them with a debit card. And it provides small companies a approach to settle for digital funds, whether or not on-line or on the level of sale.
“Throughout my time in China, I noticed the way in which providers like WeChat and AliPay advanced,” Lakhani explains. “However in Pakistan there’s nothing comparable, despite the fact that this can be a nation that may be very underbanked.”
Certainly. For many individuals – each customers and companies – Pakistan stays a money economic system. Some 50 million adults are unbanked – getting on for 1 / 4 of the inhabitants – and sure teams are significantly poorly served. For instance, only a third of Pakistani ladies have a checking account. College students and the self-employed are additionally routinely ignored by the banking sector.
Amongst small companies, in the meantime, Lakhani factors out that 90% of Pakistani enterprises deal nearly fully in money. The nation has simply 60,000 level of sale terminals that allow prospects to pay by card in particular person. On-line banking penetration charges are very low.
NayaPay founder and CEO Danish Lakhani
NayaPay
Towards this backdrop, Lakhani noticed a chance to construct a worthwhile new enterprise that will confront this exclusion. “We’re empowering younger Pakistani adults beginning their monetary journey, from college students entering into maturity to freelancers and entrepreneurs taking an lively function in managing their funds,” he says. “Our instruments are meant to offer enterprise house owners visibility of their money flows, pay suppliers and develop gross sales; our objective is to allow them to deal with progress whereas we handle the remainder.”
The primary stage of the launch of NayaPay is nearing completion, with 50,000 customers already utilizing a beta model of the app that the corporate launched final 12 months. By way of a NayaPay pockets on their cellphone, they will pay payments, handle their funds and pay in retailers that settle for the expertise. The app is chat-based, within the fashion of WeChat and related providers, and customers are additionally issued with a Visa debit card they will use for funds.
Stage two of the launch over the approaching months will see NayaPay deal with the opposite aspect of the transaction, with the roll-out of its providers for small companies. The corporate guarantees a common cost acceptance platform, enabling small enterprise house owners to simply accept funds in any means they see match, whether or not in-person or on-line.
Lakhani argues that in addition to fixing a sensible drawback round digital funds, NayaPay will deliver broader advantages, enabling each customers and small companies to get a a lot stronger grip on their funds. Somewhat than having to deal in money, they’ll be capable to assessment and handle their funds on-screen. Over time, the platform expects to introduce a sequence of instruments to assist with this.
The long-term ambition is for NayaPay to turn out to be a “super-app” for Pakistanis’ monetary wants. Lakhani expects to have the ability to supply financial savings, funding and lending providers, significantly as knowledge flows in about customers and offers a method with which to know their wants and circumstances. He additionally plans to host different suppliers’ apps on NayaPay, extending the vary of providers that the platform provides. “Our objective is to proceed to innovate and construct performance to turn out to be part of individuals’s day by day lives, for the remainder of their lives,” he says.
That imaginative and prescient has excited traders. The funding spherical introduced at present is led by Zayn Capital, the worldwide fund supervisor MSA Novo and the early-stage enterprise capital investor Graph Ventures. Singapore-based Saison Capital, Waleed Saigol’s Maple Leaf Capital and Warren Hogarth, CEO of Empower Finance, have additionally participated within the spherical, alongside the sponsors of the Lakson Group – a Pakistani conglomerate with pursuits in media, telecom, industrials and monetary providers.
Lakhani plans to deploy the money to help buyer acquisition and help, as NayaPay works in direction of its goal of onboarding 5 million customers and companies. The funding may also assist the corporate to speed up its roll-out of its small enterprise proposition – and to construct a machine studying group as NayaPay focuses on analytics to assist it introduce new providers.
