Lahore-based B2B e-commerce marketplace Tajir announced earlier this month that it had raised a whopping $17 million in a Series-A round. The funding was led by US-based VC firm Kleiner Perkins, with significant contributions coming from Y Combinator Continuity Fund, AAVCF, Fatima Gobi Ventures, and Flexport, among others.
Tajir was launched in 2018 as an online platform dedicated to selling inventory to small, family-owned convenience stores. Its mobile app helps these stores to overcome challenges such as failing to get stock in time, or overpaying for inventories, and such.
Basically, with Tajir’s support, small stores with limited capital can order inventory at their convenience, leverage competitive and transparent prices, and have access to a wider range of products.
Following the success of the Series-A round, Babar Khan, co-founder of Tajir,noted, “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.”
Meanwhile, Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins, explained the decision to invest in Tajir by saying that the startup’s vision to improve the existing supply chain in Pakistan makes “a ton of sense” and is backed by a competent software
Tajir now plans on using the newly acquired capital to expand to Pakistan’s largest city Karachi.
