KalPay, a Pakistani buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) fintech platform, has said that it has successfully closed an early-stage funding round of over a million dollars.
KalPay’s round would be the first funding announcement for the year. The recent round was led by Orbit Startups and joined by investors including Super Capital VC and Bansea, among others. The startup did not disclose the exact amount that was raised but disclosed that this amount was over $1 million.
Shershah Hassan, the founder and CEO of Kalpay further disclosed that the funding was a combination of both equity and debt. He added that they were able to raise the target amount, if debt financing was also taken into account.
According to the founder, KalPay’s last financing round was closed in January 2022, with On Deck and Pinetree partners as investors.
The startup operates in three verticals which include BNPL for online shopping, and the Rasayi vertical under which the startup provides financing for phones, travel and productive digital assets. The third vertical is Taleem under which KalPay provides education financing.
Hassan told Profit that they were working with multiple financial institutions to finance these loans for the consumers, adding further that one-third of the new funding would go towards financing.
Hassan said that KalPay has competitors in all of the verticals they operate in, however, the industry itself is at a nascent stage, while the market was big enough to have room for multiple companies. “The high rates have certainly affected our business as our lending products get more expensive for the end users,” he added, commenting on how things have been tough during the ongoing economic downturn.
Hassan further explained that KalPay raised the current round in tranches, rather than in one go, considering the difficult macroeconomic environment. “We focused on investors whose values aligned with our impact-focused vision. I think investors are still skeptical about the Pakistani market and it might take over a year before things get back to normal,” he said.
On the sustainability front, Hassan shared that KalPay observes positive unit economics, having already reached EBITDA-level profitability adding that the current investment will be used for scaling KalPay’s operations. He said, “Now that we are able to cover the operating costs, we will be scaling rapidly across all our verticals but with a specific focus on impact-based use cases. Some important strategic partnerships are in process, which will really help us take things up a notch.”
The company has entered into partnerships with companies, such as Foodpanda and Careem, as well as educational institutions such as LUMS and UCP. Hassan claims that these strategic partnerships have played a huge role in KalPay’s growth, especially within B2B2C for sales.
