A grocery store owner with one of SnappRetail’s sales tools
The number of international retailers, department stores and supermarkets operating in Pakistan is increasing, which creates convenience for consumers, but is a problem for kiryanas or small general stores. According to the report of the State Bank of Pakistan, the growth of the general stores, especially in the cities, as large retail stores expand their networks.
Part of the reason why Kiryans struggle to compete is that many still operate with pen and paper. Karachi-based SnappRetail wants to help them digitize all their operations and help them by providing micro-loans. The Karachi-based company announced today that it has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Zain Capital Bitrate Fund in participation with Antler and Century Oak Capital.
The funding will be used to expand SnappRetail to 1,000 customers, product development, hiring and expansion, planned to cover 13 cities by the end of 2024. The startup’s CEO Adel Rasheed told TechCrunch that there are 900,000 grocery retailers in Pakistan. Targeting 300,000 retailers who contribute 50% of grocery shopping volume.
SnappRetail’s products include point-of-sale (POS) devices and an end-to-end operations platform (for inventory management, stock ordering and analytics) that help small retailers compete with larger brands. The platform enables them to accept digital and card payments and access microcredit for working capital.
SnappRetail was founded in 2021 by Rashid, Moazzam Ali Khan, Ahsan Aziz and Moez Ali. The group’s first startup is ResourceLinked, a retail recruitment consultancy that helps 100,000 retailers hire staff. Rashid and Khan’s previous experience includes time spent working at consumer giants such as Unilever and L’oreal.
Rashid told TechCrunch that the team’s background in the retail sector led them to launch SnappRetail because they saw that many consumers operate manual systems and don’t have bank accounts.
“What this basically does is that these store owners are missing out on a huge opportunity to use technology to gain insights from sales data and create forecasts, improve financial management, better manage inventory, and the list goes on,” he said. .
SnappRetail makes money by charging its customers a monthly retail fee. It also sells retail sales data to large consumer goods manufacturers. Rashid said that as the company signs up more retailers, it will open up additional revenue streams through partnerships with products such as working capital loans, B2B aggregation and card payments.
Another startup that is digitizing retail in Pakistan is Bazaar, which earlier this year announced it had raised $70 million. When asked how SnappRetail differs from Bazaar, Rashid said, “Bazaar is an app-based B2B platform. We are also deploying a hardware-hosted micro-enterprise system in the store that will help the retailer digitize their core store operations. SnappRetail is similar to Square in the US but for the grocery retail segment and more like Geomart in India.
In a statement, Faisal Aftab, Founder and General Partner, Zain BitTreat Fund, said, “As a globally proven concept, there is no doubt that SnappRetail has the right approach to solving an important retail problem. We’re particularly impressed with the experience and maturity this founding team brings to the table, striking the right balance between high growth and burnout.
