The International Financing Corporation, IFC, has invested around about $3 million in Pakistan’s first woman-led venture capital fund, I2I Ventures, under its Startup Catalyst program, which seems to support innovative early-stage startups. This is said by a global development institution recently.
The IFC focuses on the private sector in developing states by advancing economic development, creating more jobs, and improving the lives of the masses, as per its website. The fund intends to back founders by investing in three seed and seed-based startups. Furthermore, on the other hand, if we talk about I2I Ventures, is a startup accelerator and venture capital fund based in Pakistan that intends to support and invest in early-stage startups and entrepreneurs in that region. The IFC claimed that its catalyst program invests in incubators and accelerators, supporting startups in untapped markets, and I2I Ventures was enhancing extensive support for early-stage startups in Pakistan.
The financing comprises up to $2 million from IFC’s account and up to $1 million from the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, WIFI, which intends to support women-owned and led firms and build the potential of women entrepreneurs to run high-growth businesses. This is the statement declared by the IFC. I2I Ventures, which was set up by Kulsoom Lakhani and Misbah Naqvi in the year 2019, provides crucial early-stage financing for startups and bakes founders by delivering them with hands-on support.
We saw with hand how complicated it was to build businesses in a state like Pakistan, and how resilient Pakistani founders were as a result. This is claimed by Naqvi. I2I Ventures was born from that experience of looking up close to the potential capacity of startups in the market and the requirement for founder-centric investors who understood business and market complications and pushed for their development or growth at the early stage.
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Zeeshan Sheik, IFC country’s manager for Pakistan-Afghanistan, claimed his corporation intended to ensure startups continue to access useful funding and support. There is a huge potential in Pakistan for startups to create and scale up new technologies and tech-enabled business models that highlight issues such as climate change or also help in the improvement or exploit the excess of the quality of education, financial services, and healthcare, among others, he claimed.
But early-stage entrepreneurs, and specifically women, encounter massive challenges in accessing the resources that they require to launch and develop their businesses. Handling this is vital to develop an ecosystem that enhances innovation and entrepreneurship. IFC’s Startup Catalyst program, which was launched in 2016, has supported around about 22 accelerators and seed funds that have invested in over 1,180 startups in 24 emerging markets till now. This is according to the report of the corporation.
At the beginning of this month, “DealCart” a Pakistani e-commerce startup intended to transform the way consumers access essential goods, successfully obtained $3 million in a funding round, which is directed and supervised by a leading Middle East investment fund, Shorook Partners.
Expected outcomes of IFC’s investment of $3 million in Pakistan women-led venture capital fund i2i Ventures
- The first expected outcome of this initiative is it will increase funding for startups and I21 ventures will deliver critical early-stage finances to the startups assisting them to overcome initial funding complications and increase their growth.
- The second most important benefit or expected outcome it will receive is to support women-led startups which will specifically intend to support women entrepreneurs to potentially lead to greater gender diversity in the entrepreneurship landscape.
- The third most expected outcome is it will create more jobs and economic growth will flourish in the country because the fund intends to stimulate job creation and it will create economic development in the state of Pakistan.
- The fourth important expected outcome is it will improve access to resources. It will remove the resource gap faced by early-stage entrepreneurs which will facilitate their ability to innovate and grow.
- The fifth expected outcome is it will strengthen the startup ecosystem encouraging more investment and entrepreneurial activity in this country.