June 3, 2021 (MLN): Pakistani startup “Tajir” has raised $17 million in a Series A round, funded by one of the leading American VC firms Kleiner Perkins.
Tajir is Pakistan's first app-based platform for retailers- a convenient way for sellers to compare prices of goods that are updated in real-time, buy inventory and enjoy a 24/7 order facility with next-day delivery.
Cofounded in 2018 by the brothers Babar and Ismail Khan, B2B eCommerce marketplace, Tajir managed to gain the attraction of various major investors including YC Continuity, AAVCF, Fatima Gobi Ventures, Flexport, Golden Gate Ventures, Liberty City Ventures, VentureSouq and angel investors including Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen and Figma CEO Dylan Field.
A report by Forbes highlighted that Tajir’s customers are mom and pop stores that struggle to purchase inventory.
“When consumers walk into small mom and pop stores, they often find the products they want out of stock,” Babar, the company’s CEO said.
The problem lies within the stores in Pakistan due to their conventional system of retailing business.
“Stores are often unable to provide the brands that consumers actually want to buy since retail is so fragmented in Pakistan”, the CEO added.
According to the report, the CEO believes that the shop owners spend an ample amount of time in making and compiling the orders. Sometimes they would even close their stores or send a friend/relative to the wholesaler. This is pattern repeated time and time again, consuming a great amount of time.
Using Tajir, customers can easily order items 24/7 without waiting for the salesman to oversee their orders. Apart from that, using the app, customers can also receive orders in one go.
Nonetheless, what distinguishes Tajir from other services is the scale of transparency in the prices that is updated in real-time constantly.
He further stated, “We’re doing for stores in Pakistan what Amazon did for consumers in the U.S.”
CTO of the company, Ismail Khan stated “90% of the retail economy in Pakistan flows through mom and pop stores.”
The product line primarily consists of convenience store items, packaged consumer products, like biscuits, soft drinks, home and personal care items, soaps, shampoos, etc. In terms of the source of revenue, the company takes a percentage of the orders to generate income.
Apparently, Tajir has grown as a company where it raised $1.8 million last summers and since then the revenue has increased by 10x. With that, the company now allows stores to purchase over 1,000 stock-keeping units via its platform adding approximately 100 SKUs/month to continuously expand selection, the report said.
Mamoon Hamid, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, said, “Their software and mission to improve that supply chain and availability of products and pricing and digitizing that process made a ton of sense. I thought that would be the first foray for a company to make an attempt at doing a lot more to be a consumer company, not just a wholesale company.”
At the moment there are at least four other VC-backed startups in Pakistan working to solve the same problem. This includes Bazaar, Retailo, Dastayr and Jugnu. These companies collectively have raised over $20 million to date from international and local investors. With today’s raise, Tajir has overtaken the rest and made its name as the best-funded player in the space in Pakistan.
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