7 Pakistan-based Women-led startups secure $9K Seed Funding
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The Standard Chartered Women In Tech Programme 2021 has just announced its cohort of 7 women-led startups shortlisted for $9K Seed investments to kickstart their growth. The program was led by Standard Chartered Bank Pakistan in partnership with INNOVentures Global. First launched in October 2014 by Standard Chartered Americas as a local community project which came into Pakistan in March 2019, The Standard Chartered Women In Tech Programme set on a mission to address gender disparity in the technology and entrepreneurial sectors.
The 7 new accelerated deals boost the startup space in Pakistan as it observed a slump in number of accelerated deals in the first half of the year. Based on MAGNiTT’s H1 2021 Pakistan Venture Investment Report, accelerated deals accounted for only 7% of total transactions closed in Pakistan over H1 2021; with the addition of these seven deals, however, Pakistan would have surpassed total accelerated deals closed in FY 2020 by 3 deals. Putting Pakistan on the path to becoming one of the few geographies in EVMs to experience an upward trajectory in accelerated deals post-pandemic.
The seven women-led, industry-traversing teams were shortlisted out of 25 after more than 350 applicants had applied. The teams went through three months of coaching, mentoring, and business management equipping them to pursue growth for their respective businesses. Moving forward, the select group will be supported by Standard Chartered where mentorship will be provided on an extensive level and a milestone-based disbursement of the amount for a period of 9 months. Here are our two picks of the most exciting startups coming out of this Cohort:
The Pakistan-based Tech startup helps organizations adopt an AI-first approach. Data labeling and cleaning are perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of computer vision, Civixa creates value by making this part seamless for customers. Civixa.ai provides fully managed data annotation and model training. Increasing efficiency by up to 99% and reducing time and cost by 50%.
Established in 2020, the Pakistan-based E-learning platform Out Class provides a high-quality alternative to tuition academies from the comfort of students’ homes and with the convenience of their own schedule. An Out-Class Crash Course typically covers the entire syllabus along with previous paper questions and full-length solutions within 25 hours. Their multi-modal content is created in-house, with a teaching style informed by the latest research on the neuroscience of learning.
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