KARACHI: Paklaunch (PL), a platform that aims to drive growth in the Pakistani entrepreneurial and investment ecosystem, has set its sights on foraying into the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries by tapping into the largest Pakistani communities in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, its founder recently said.

PL offers training, advisory, and fundraising services for Pakistani entrepreneurs and since 2022, has helped over 90 startups raise a whopping $90 million and hosted 400 plus tech events globally. PL recently held its flagship exclusive invite-only unconferences in Riyadh and Dubai and hosted over 350 global investors there. 

PL was founded by Aly Fahd as a WhatsApp group in San Francisco, California, on April 2020. The founder established the platform to support Pakistani startups by raising capital and offering them mentorship.

“After growing to 350,000 members globally, PL now aims to expand to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to support the thriving startup ecosystem by connecting startup founders with capital and resources needed to scale,” Fahd told Arab News on Sunday.

He said PL aims to be the largest tech startups and investors community in the GCC region by the end of 2024. “Paklaunch aims to tap into the largest Pakistani diaspora in the world in Saudi Arabia to grow the community,” he said. 

The platform last week announced it had raised close to one million dollars in its seed funding round. 

Disrupt.com, a renowned venture builder, led the round, which featured participation from Indus Valley Capital, a prominent early-stage venture capital fund, an early-stage company adviser and investor Yousuf Khan. It also featured angel investors— a term used to describe someone that provides initial seed money for startup businesses, usually in exchange for ownership equity in the company— affiliated with Google and Meta, and others based out of San Francisco, New York City, Toronto, Singapore, and Dubai cities.

With this funding, PL aims to create a flourishing ecosystem for regional startups in Pakistan and the GCC. Leveraging its investment expertise and global connections, along with Disrupt.com’s entrepreneurial ethos, PL is extending its influence beyond Pakistan by encompassing key GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the platform said in a statement after the funding round closed. 

“What has been absolutely amazing is how quickly we grew,” Fahd noted. “Paklaunch community [grew[ year over year from 1,200 [members] by the end of 2020 to 350,000 [members] by the end 2023,” he added.

Fahd said PL has hosted 400+ events, hosted six large tech conferences in four countries and three continents, and conducted women accelerator programs and trainings. 

“We now have followers across 40 countries and are particularly strong in Pakistan, North America, UK, UAE and Saudi Arabia,” he said. “We are active on eight media platforms, a dedicated website and 50+ invite-only WhatsApp groups.”