Y- Combinator-backed Tajir earns $1.8M to assist mom-and-pop stores source inventory in Pakistan

Y- Combinator backed Tajir earns $1.8M to assist mom-and-pop stores source inventory in Pakistan. Tajir is a Lahore-headquartered startup and nowadays serves more than 15,000 neighborhood stores, locally known in the area as kirana, across Pakistan.

Y- Combinator-backed Tajir earns $1.8M to assist mom-and-pop stores source inventory in Pakistan

Y- Combinator backed Tajir earns $1.8M to assist mom-and-pop stores source inventory in Pakistan. Tajir is a Lahore-headquartered startup and nowadays serves more than 15,000 neighborhood stores, locally known in the area as kirana, across Pakistan.

This startup is two-year-old with the first startup from the nation to be backed by Y Combinator, said that it has closed a new financing round.

Pioneer Fund, Golden Gate Ventures, Fatima Gobi Ventures, Karavan, and VentureSouq led the round, with participation from a clutch of angel investors, Tajir co-founders Babar Khan and Ismail Khan .

Tajir offers full honesty and transparency on the prices of various products, it is as challenge and addressing it is a bit tricky as store owners confront offline each day, and sells and delivers inventories to the stores, said the Khan brothers, whose father ran an FMCG retail distribution business for three decades.

The co-founder Ismail said: “We help store owners save money on inventory and help them boost their sales”

Take India, where the offline retail drives a huge majority of sales in Pakistan. “The retail is even more unorganized here compared to neighboring nations,” they said. As unfortunately, there’s no Amazon or any major giant running an e-commerce business for consumers in Pakistan today.

For Babar and Ismail, that’s a big opportunity as they scale in this startup. According to official government data, there are nearly 2 million neighborhood stores in Pakistan.

Tajir is gaining ground in the country today mostly through word-of-mouth endorsement from existing partners, though the startup also maintains a sales team to educate more store owners about their platform.

It plans to use the capital to expand its offering and develop more services that stores need to grow their business, the brothers said. These offerings might include a wider catalog of inventory, and access to financial services as quoted by the two witty brothers.

Co-founder Babur Khan said: “We want to offer an essential service to every single mom-and-pop store in Pakistan!”

Although, Tajir today does not have any major competitor, which is good news though as a lot is riding on its founders’ shoulders who are among the early batch of entrepreneurs in the country.

In numerous ways, their triumph and development will show the perception of the Pakistani market towards the investors worldwide.