With a staggering 56 million acres of arable land, Pakistan’s vast fields hold immense untapped potential for tech and digitization. Venturing into uncharted territory for the VC world, Pakistan-based agritech, Jiye Technologies, is capitalizing on this opportunity, reimagining the agriculture supply chain in Pakistan. Fueling its growth in the MENAP region, the startup has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding with participation from EquiTie represented by Ahmed El Hamawy, Sarmayacar, Access Bridge Ventures, Jabbar Internet Group, Seedstars, and a number of strategic angel investors from MENAP, Europe and North America.
Jiye technologies are leading a revolution in Pakistan’s agriculture sector, increasing farmers’ accessibility to major markets and providing retailers a lean supply chain ecosystem for streamlined sourcing, a necessary and vital innovation according to co-founder, Ahmed Bilal Afzal.
“We saw the supply chain inefficiencies and its fallouts creating a downward spiral of issues for Pakistan,” Afzal says. “ I always wanted to leverage my experience to solve problems for the masses and capitalize on technology to create a larger impact”.
The company was able to scale more than 30x in just five months, rapidly growing its team and even planning to expand to five major Pakistani cities. This success can be credited to a formidable founding team; Afzal has 10 years of experience in the supply chain, Ali Amin counts Careem and SWVL on his resume and Osama Salman brings experience from time spent at SWVL and Unilever.
The newly acquired funds will help Jiye Technologies to launch new fintech solutions underpinned by a push for financial inclusion, with a 2020 MENA expansion plan also in the works.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Technology Express staff and is published from a syndicated feed)
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