Airlift, a Pakistani tech startup for the fast delivery of household essentials has raised $85m in series B financing.
The company plans to use the latest injection to expand to other markets in Africa and the Middle East.
“The funding would be utilized for network growth, marketing, and infrastructure development, we are looking at Asia, Africa, and other countries. We are excited about big markets in Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” the company told Arab News.
In the past year – during which grocery delivery startups’ valuation increased as their expansion was fuelled by the pandemic – and using so-called ‘dark stores,’ it has scaled operations across 8 Pakistani cities from its Lahore headquarters.
The startup has raised over $107 million to date, and is backed by more than 7 investors, including Sam Altman, the former president of YCombinator, Biz Stone, co-founder at Twitter and Medium, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, former chief executive officer of Disney.
The startup is also planning on paving the way for 200,000 jobs in Pakistan within the next five years.
“We as Pakistanis must return to where we started by: fighting against the odds and staying true to our core values of hustle, teamwork, resourcefulness, and bias to action. If this is the journey of a thousand miles, we have taken only the first step.”
