Pakistan’s financial technology (FinTech) and logistics startup PostEx has announced raising $1.5 million in seed funding from leading institutional investors to solve challenges around cash on delivery with instant and upfront payments by scaling its one-stop shop for financing and logistics solutions for eCommerce platforms.
The round was led by global VC firm MSA Capital who has previously invested in Uber, Klarna, Nubank, and Swvl. The UAE-based Shorooq Partners, Pakistan-focused Zayn Capital, Venture Souq, PNO Ventures, and 92Ventures also participated in the round. Pakistan’s Arbisoft CEO Yasser Bashir participated as an angel investor.
PostEx has earlier raised an undisclosed amount in the pre-seed round.
In a primarily cash-based economy, running a business online comes with challenges of cash recovery cycles, impeding scaling due to working capital constraints. Challenges on the last-mile delivery front also lead to high cancellations and a lack of financing options adversely affects the growth of eCommerce businesses in Pakistan.
PostEx addresses both challenges by providing upfront payment on cash on delivery orders, complemented by an efficient in-house logistics fleet for eCommerce businesses, thereby helping businesses grow via easy and instant access to cash and liquidity.
Omer Khan, PostEx co-founder and CEO said, “Pakistan’s eCommerce landscape is rapidly evolving and lack of access to financing opportunities is hampering the growth of online merchants and eCommerce landscape broadly. Our goal is to be the first and last source of funds of fast-growing eCommerce businesses to meet all their capital requirements to accelerate their growth.”
“With fresh funds and a capacity to provide over $50 million a year in financing to companies, we are on a mission to change the face of lending in Pakistan,” he added.
With the increasing volume of digital payments, PostEx had also introduced a digital payments solution that enables businesses to collect payments online from consumers through PostEx’s checkout plugins.
“The rapid growth of eCommerce in Pakistan is being held back by high levels of Cash on Delivery (CoD). PostEx’s integrated instant payments with logistics is a model we have backed globally to resolve the hurdles posed by CoD and believe that Omer and team have the execution capabilities to build a regional leader,” said Tim Chen of MSA Capital.
The all-encompassing financial product and digital payments complemented by logistics provide PostEx the perfect moat and position it uniquely as a one-stop shop for e-commerce with the increasing number of retailers selling their goods online.
Essentially, PostEx is competing with Safepay and the likes in digital payments; it is also competing with logistics giant TCS and Leopards and startups Trax, Swyft and Rider, but has found itself a niche to stay ahead because none of the aforementioned startups provide invoice financing solutions.
“PostEX is solving key problems for the rapidly scaling e-commerce market in Pakistan through its factoring and logistics solution. Their innovative approach creates stickiness with retailers, providing them last mile and working capital solutions eventually becoming their financial products solutions provider,” said Faisal Aftab, co-founder and managing partner at Zayn Capital.
“For us at Shorooq Partners, Post-Ex represents the perfect intersection for our views on the potential of the Pakistani market as well as our deep appreciation for infrastructure support organizations in the eCommerce industry. A fantastic team building the right product that eliminates clear complexities facing many merchants looking to grow their eCommerce businesses,” said Tamer Azer, Partner at Shorooq Partners.
PostEx, founded by Omer Khan, Saad Mahmood, Babar Razzaq, and Adil Naseem, plans to utilise the funds to grow its products and bring depth to its existing technology-based CoD financing platform. Currently operating with a team of over 150 members, it plans to further grow its team as it scales to new clients and services.
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