NayaPay, a Pakistan-based fintech platform, has raised Ksh. 1.5 billion (USD 13 million) in one of the largest seed rounds in South Asia. The round was led by Zayn Capital, global fund manager MSA Novo and early-stage VC Graph Ventures from Silicon Valley. Singapore-based Saison Capital, Waleed Saigol’s Maple Leaf Capital and Warren Hogarth, CEO Empower Finance, also participated in the round, alongside a major investment from the sponsors of the Lakson Group.
NayaPay is the first fintech of its kind in Pakistan having recently secured the first eMoney Institution license from the central bank, State Bank of Pakistan. The company has committed to make financial services simpler and accessible to millions of Pakistani users.
Pakistan presents a significant market opportunity for NayaPay, where over 50 million adults are unbanked and only 33% of women have a bank account. With 70% of the population under 35 years old, there is a significant mobile-first generation. On the merchant side, the majority of SMBs in Pakistan are unregistered, have traditionally dealt primarily in cash, and have very limited access to business banking.
The fintech is currently building a SaaS based platform called NayaPay Arc offering universal payment acceptance and financial management tools for SMBs. NayaPay’s platform strategy will harness the network effects between consumers and merchants, as seen in platforms such as Square Cash/Square, WeChat Pay, AliPay and Venmo in their native markets..
Commenting on the secured funding, NayaPay CEO and founder, Danish A. Lakhani, said, “NayaPay is empowering young Pakistani adults starting their financial journey, from students stepping into adulthood to freelancers and entrepreneurs taking an active role in managing their finances. In many senses, it’s a coming-of-age moment for many and our goal is to continue to innovate and build functionality to become a part of their daily lives, for the rest of their lives.”
Faisal Aftab, Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Zayn Capital Fronteir said, “We are very bullish on fintech in Pakistan. While just beginning to emerge, Pakistani fintechs have the advantage of learning from peers and placing better informed strategic bets. We were impressed by the completeness of the vision of the founding team at NayaPay, and their differentiated platform-based strategy– first focused on servicing the needs of underbanked consumers and SMBs with specific use cases and building out from there.”