Does it matter that some Pakistani companies rely on Indian data processing vendors?

The threat is not critical, but Pakistani companies need a better understanding of how to treat data they collect from their customers

In 2011, Avlesh Singh and Ankit Utreja launched a little known startup called WebEngage in a 180 square foot (just over half a marla) office in Mumbai. The space was cramped for the two founders and the one engineer working with them at the time. 

Today, WebEngage has become one of the largest Indian SaaS companies providing a unified customer engagement platform to help businesses automate marketing campaigns across email, SMS, web push notifications, mobile apps, and WhatsApp channels. It has raised over $27 million in venture capital funding with an estimated annual recurring revenue (ARR) of nearly $23 million. Headquartered in Mumbai with international offices in Gurugram, Bengaluru, São Paulo, Jakarta, and Dubai, WebEngage as a star studded client list that includes global giants Unilever, Sony, and Airtel Africa and Indian enterprises like Adani Group, Bajaj Capital, Reliance General Insurance, TU CIBIL, The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), and several digital natives.

They also boast an extensive roster of Pakistani clients. They are not the only Indian SaaS company providing these services to Pakistani clients. MoEngage, a similar SaaS platform that provides insights-led digital and telecom marketing services, was founded in 2014 in Bengaluru by Raviteja Dodda and Yashwanth Kumar. MoEngage has since raised $181 million in funding and has headquartered itself in San Francisco, California. Its clients include Fortune 500 enterprises such as Deutsche Telekom, Samsung, and Ally to mobile-first brands such as Flipkart, OLA, and bigbasket. 

On its website, MoEngage lists a number of Pakistani companies and startups such as Dastgyr, Kravemart, Laam, Oraan, and Deal Kart. Other organisations including the Dawn Media Group, Jazz, fashion retail brand Ego, and a number of other Pakistani companies were also using the services of either WebEngage or MoEngage. These are the names of companies Profit was able to directly get in touch with. Many others are listed on their websites as clients. 

Why does this matter?

 

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The content in this publication is expensive to produce. But unlike other journalistic outfits, business publications have to cover the very organizations that directly give them advertisements. Hence, this large source of revenue, which is the lifeblood of other media houses, is severely compromised on account of Profit’s no-compromise policy when it comes to our reporting. No wonder, Profit has lost multiple ad deals, worth tens of millions of rupees, due to stories that held big businesses to account.

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Taimoor Hassan
Taimoor Hassan
The author is a staff member and can be reached at [email protected]

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