Pakistan’s inclusive financial platform Nim has raised $2.5 million in a seed funding round as it works to support underbanked communities in the country.
The Karachi-based startup targets communities including agriculture, MSMEs, e-commerce, logistics, healthcare and others. It provides a credit platform that its partners use to offer customized credit products to consumers and MSMEs. Nim is working on a bank-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that will go live in December, allowing partners to embed wallets and payments and offer financial products such as insurance and savings tailored to the needs of the community.
Three-year-old Nim was founded by Nadeem Sheikh, Vladimira Brystenska and Naeem Zamindar, who previously worked as fintech entrepreneurs, operators and VCs.
“Most of them [existing] Players are providing B2C solutions; We are a B2B2C solution. If you look at the financial space involved, it’s a $167 billion opportunity,” Shaikh said in an interview with TechCrunch.
Due to Covid, the strong growth in digitization has helped Nim to integrate its financial services across private and public sectors.
Citing industry data, Shaikh said that currently around 53 million people are underbanked in Pakistan. Over time, the startup plans to expand beyond Pakistan to support underbanked communities in other emerging markets.
The seed fund startup aims to expand its existing team of 20 people, deploy a BaaS platform and expand licenses, and was founded by Hong Kong-based Spark Labs FinTech. The funding also saw the participation of Pakistan Investment Bank. Arif Habib, Cordoba Logistics & Ventures, Tarah Ventures, My Asia VC, Concept Wine and Construction Capital. In addition, Outrun Ventures and Strategic Angels, CSO of tech house BPC, founding partner of Mentor Fund and fintech veteran and ex-CEO of SECL participated in the seed round.
William Chu, Managing Partner, Spark Labs FinTech, said at an event: “We strongly believe in Nim’s mission to enable financial security for underbanked communities and have full confidence in Nim’s leadership team to make this vision a reality. press release.
The startup was boarded before it got its seed money.
