Eleven startups from five National Incubation Centers (NICs) of Ignite were showcased at Pakistan Tech Fest 2022 that held at Expo Center Lahore. The 2-day action-packed event with a tagline Innovate, Digitize & Disrupt showcased solutions for all verticals of the economy with a focus on networking, knowledge sharing & lead generation and a series of conferences that created a learning environment for the like-minded people to share knowledge & experiences. NIC startups of various verticals attracted the attention of visitors and investors including Heirloom (e-commerce), Ivision (artificial intelligence), KalPay (fintech), QuickEats (IT), Teleport (mobility), Waterness (IoT), Farmdar (Agritech), Digital Tax Services (fintech), Mapalytics (AR/VR), CalCart (IoT), and MyTM (fintech). Officials from Ignite, PSEB, P@SHA, and Ministry of IT & Telecom also participated in the event. Speaking on the occasion, CEO Ignite, Asim Shahryar Husain, said “Ignite has been providing both local and international networking platforms to our startups to pitch their business ideas and products to potential customers and investors. Ignite has planned some big initiatives this year including two new incubation centers in Faisalabad and Hyderabad and Pakistan Tech Startup Fund. So, Ignite is igniting the startup ecosystem of Pakistan.” In 2021, investment in Pakistani startups grew by 5 times over 2020 to $373 million and 2022 is looking even better. In the first quarter of 2022, Pakistani startups have raised more than $150 million already and if the momentum continues like this, forecast for 2022 is between $600-$700 million of investments in Pakistani startups. Some NIC success stories in first quarter of this year include MyTM, an NIC fintech startup, which raised $7 million through a consortium of investors recently while Encore Pay, another fintech startup from NIC Karachi, raised $1.5 million in seed funding backed by GreenHouse Capital.
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