Pakistan-based Tajir secures $17M Series A investment
Tajir, a Lahore-based B2B E-commerce marketplace has raised a $17M Series A round, led by American VC firm Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Y Combinator Continuity Fund, AAVCF, Fatima Gobi Ventures, Flexport, Golden Gate Ventures, Liberty City Ventures, VentureSouq, and angel investors including Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen and Figma CEO Dylan Field.
Founded in 2018 by Babar and Ismail Khan, Tajir sells inventory to small, family-owned convenience stores across Pakistan through its mobile app. Currently, a lot of these stores face challenges including, overpaying for inventory, failing to get stock when they need it and as a result making lower sales.
With Tajir, these stores can order inventory at their convenience, receive on-demand delivery, enjoy transparent and competitive prices, and choose from a wide selection of products.
Babar Khan, co-founder of Tajir commented “When consumers walk into small mom and pop stores they often find the products they want out of stock. Stores are often unable to provide the brands that consumers actually want to buy since retail is so fragmented in Pakistan. We’re doing for stores in Pakistan what Amazon did for consumers in the U.S.”
Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins added “Their software and mission to improve that supply chain and availability of products and pricing and digitizing that process made a ton of sense,” Hamid says. “I thought that would be the first foray for a company to make an attempt at doing a lot more to be a consumer company, not just a wholesale company.”
Tajir plans to use the new funds to expand to Karachi, one of Pakistan’s largest cities.
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