The National Incubation Centre Lahore (NICL) at LUMS held its capstone event – the Investor Summit, which brought together its 9th Cohort of change-driven start-ups, pitching their ventures in Agritech, Cleantech, Edtech, Healthtech, and Fintech to seasoned investors and start-up founders in Pakistan.
The Investor Summit is the culmination of a 6-month long Foundation Programme where the necessary skills and knowledge are imparted to the incubated entrepreneurs to underpin their start-ups with real-world experience. While addressing his experience of being part of the Investor Summit, Humayun Mazhar, Founder & CEO at CresVentures, said, “The passion, the energy, and the youth excites me, and whenever I come here at NICL, I feel younger. I love the energy of this place.” Referring to NICL’s start-ups, he added, “The start-ups graduating from here are adding value in terms of employment and revenue to the national exchequer and I’d like to see them grow in the times to come.” “I’m thoroughly impressed by the quality and variety of founders that has only grown over the last 5 cohorts which is very refreshing.
That goes to show the effort that NICL is putting in and making sure that the graduating start-ups are more mature when pitching their ideas,” said Hamza Iqbal, NICL Foundation Council Member and CEO at Healthwire, while sharing his thoughts on the work NICL is doing within the start-up ecosystem of Pakistan. The participating start-ups at the Investor Summit were (in order of presentation) SAY Global, Roshni, Janwar Mandi, Gamma Green Recycle, Raftar Technologies, Wholly Ranch, Cashmail (Pvt.) Ltd., eBilty, Print Me All, Kitchen Collabs, Darzi Cut, Zarai Zambeel, and SAFE Space, pitching to spark investors’ interest. NICL was founded in 2018 by Ignite National Technology Fund (IGNITE) and the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MOITT), and has since graduated 152 ventures, and housed 84 female entrepreneurs in verticals of interest.