Fintech startup Tag has raised more than $12 million in seed funding in what is now the South Asian market’s biggest seed funding round. Tag provides banking and financial services to users in Pakistan and has made set another in the world of fintech, especially in the South Asian region.
One-year-old YC-backed Tag saw participation from investors like Canaan Partners, Lee Fixel’s Addition, Liberty City Ventures, Banana Capital, Mantis, etc. The round brings the company’s total funds raised to $17.5 million and values the company at $100 million. According to the company’s founder and CEO Talal Gondal, the funding round took two weeks to close. “We are trying to become both Revolut and Paytm in Pakistan”, Talal Gondal revealed the company’s goal excitedly.
Tag’s financial services are quite numerous. The startup partners with public and private companies to offer employees banking services, offers virtual and physical cards powered by Visa, provides B2C offerings, etc. The startup plans on expanding its financial services, “we eventually want to offer the complete set of banking and financial services to users in Pakistan”, the startup’s CEO said.
The startup space in Pakistan is opening up. Startups like Tag are helping shed more light on the space. In fact, there has been quite an avalanche of announcements from Pakistani startups of recent. These startups have been able to draw in high-profile investors, and this has provided the startup ecosystem in the country with a big boost. Tag is currently one of the most valued startups from the Y combinatory batch it was a part of.
According to Talal Gondai, the South Asian space is finally having its moment. The CEO worked as an investor in Europe before deciding to return to Pakistan to serve the Pakistani people. “Each country’s startup ecosystem goes through various waves. In India, we saw e-commerce firms like Flipkart flourish in the first wave. Firms like Ola, Zomato, and Swiggy and fintech firms like PhonePe and Paytm made inroads in the waves after that. I had the conviction that a similar thing would play out in Pakistan”, he said.
Speaking about its investment in Tag, Managing Partner at Liberty City Ventures – Murtaza Akbar said that “Liberty City Ventures is proud to support a visionary leader like Talai in his efforts to expand financial inclusion for the underserved and underbanked. We expect the world-class team he has assembled at Tag to build a regional fintech powerhouse”.
Places like Africa, some parts of Asia, etc., still have people that don’t have access to financial services, and fintech startups like Tag, are helping to bridge the gap and bring the unbanked people closer to financial services. Tag’s CEO revealed that the startup is already working on broadening its product offerings and plans on hiring more talent to push the startup’s services, and plans to leverage all the available opportunities the market has to offer.
