PakWheels.com, Pakistan’s auto portal raises US$ Three.Five million from Malaysia based VC

The Indian startup ecosystem is at a very arousing stage and it remains our main concentrate of coverage. But we’ve recently expanded overseas coverage and regularly take a look at what is happening in neighbouring counties (for example, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Africa, etc). In a  latest development, Pakistan based PakWheels.com has closed one of the largest venture capital investment deals into a Pakistan technology venture. Frontier Digital Ventures, a Malaysia based venture capital fund focused on online classifieds businesses in the emerging and frontier markets, will invest US$Three.Five Million into PakWheels.com

Over the last ten years, PakWheels.com has helped millions of Pakistanis buy & sell cars and bikes, read automotive reviews and news, check automotive prices and find solutions to their automotive needs. The site gets about eighteen million views monthly and has a large following. Despite the introduction of rivaling classifieds websites by giants like Naspers, Schibsted and other international internet firms, PakWheels.com has managed to grow its market share.

Muhammad Raza Saeed, Co-Founder and CEO of PakWheels.com, said while commenting on the deal

Pakistan’s internet user base is expected to grow to one hundred million users by two thousand nineteen and we want to be the go-to place for anything and everything to do with wheels for this online population. This round of funding will help us strengthen our leadership position, improve existing services and build fresh offerings. Think Wheels, Think PakWheels.

Pakistan is often overlooked but it has some promising statistics to back itself:

• Pakistan is world’s 6th most populous country
• Pakistan has 25-30 million internet users expected to grow to one hundred million by 2019
• Pakwheels is one of the largest site in Pakistan with eighteen million page views / month, 30,000+ listings per month.

CEO and Founder of Frontier Digital Ventures, Shaun Di Gregorio says, “PakWheels.com epitomizes the kind of business that Frontier Digital Ventures is seeking to invest in. We love frontier and emerging markets and have a wealth of expertise and a proven track record of extracting value in the opportunities these markets present, so we are indeed looking forward to working with the team to take the portal to its utter potential.”

The investment by Frontier Digital Ventures goes after a latest trend of investments by international seed stage funds and angel investors into tech focused Pakistani start-ups. Frontier Digital’s earlier invested in a real estate portal of Pakistan- Zameen.com, and Kima Venture’s funding of Shopistan and computer vision products company Eyedeus Labs are latest examples.

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