Ambareen Baig: Evolution of the Startup Ecosystem in Pakistan

SCOLAR Podcast

"[200M People & Zero Unicorns](https://medium.com/swlh/200m-people-zero-unicorns-building-the-next-great-startup-in-pakistan-fccef58318a4)" – so reads a title of one article about Pakistan's startup scene. It very much summarizes one of the hopes of our episode's guest – Ambareen Baig, Insights Lead at Invest2Innovate, a 3-arm Pakistani Accelerator, Venture Fund and Insights Lab.  *We talked with Ambareen over Zoom in a live mode in August;* [*video verison of this episode*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYn_Ubr9AhA) *is available on SCOLAR Academy YouTube channel.* But these two data points omit something very important in between: a booming tech scene, that has seen a [rapid growth in the last decade](https://www.dw.com/en/pakistan-the-next-big-asian-market-for-tech-startups/a-52183841). With Ambareen, we have made a virtual data-rich deep dive into the key dynamics within the young, yet promising innovation ecosystem of the South Asian nation. Ambareen gave us multiple curious data points to paint a detailed picture of startup activities and venture capital flows in Pakistan over the last 5 years - such as, for instance, how international and local VCs investments differ value- and deal quantity-wise; where female entrepreneurs tend to find source of financing for their projects; and which sectors rose the most against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.  *"International VCs invested $91.9M in Pakistani startups from 2015-2020 (July) in 23 deals, while local VCs invested a total of $42.4M (in 42 deals) during the same time".* *Exlore* [*Deal Flow Tracker*](https://invest2innovate.com/deal-flow-tracker/) *for more data.*  *From: "*[*Covid-19 & Startups in Pakistan: Pivots, Partnerships & Future Positioning*](https://www.menabytes.com/covid-19-startups-in-pakistan/)*", an article by Ambareen @ MENAbytes.* A lot of the mentioned data comes from the [Deal Flow Tracker](https://invest2innovate.com/deal-flow-tracker/), an adjustable database of traceable investments into Pakistan's startups between 2015-2020. Not only is it an exceptionally useful tool for anyone doing research about the trends in international & local investments into Pakistani startups; there are also several other value-added variables to compare the data, including the gender of each startup founder, startups' operating status, sector, amounts of financing raised, and a couple more. Insights Arm under Ambareen's lead is on the respectable mission of facilitating VCs and individuals' – both from Pakistan & beyond – understanding of the country's innovation ecosystem with insightful research of various sectors from [grocery delivery](https://mailchi.mp/b33a236985b4/i2i-covid-startups-newsletter-april-6731998) to [edtech](https://www.menabytes.com/edtech-pakistan/). Be sure to check [i2i website](https://invest2innovate.com/insights/) to cover the whole range of their materials! Thank you again Ambareen for talking to us; we'll definitely keep revisiting Pakistan's innovation market from different angles – stay tuned for the upcoming episodes!