Pakistan’s first women-led, women-first fintech startup Oraan has raised $3 million in the largest seed funding closed by a local women-led startup.
Oraan, a Karachi-based gender-inclusive fintech, has raised $3 million in seed funding, according to a press statement issued by the company.
This is the largest seed funding closed by a women-led fintech startup in Pakistan. Wavemaker Partners and Zayn Capital co-led the funding. Other participants in the $3 million funding included i2i Ventures, Haitou Global, Resolution Ventures, Plug and Play and Hustle Fund, and angels like Claire Diaz-Ortiz. A previous investing partner at Magma Partners and early Twitter employee also participated in the seed funding.
Oraan, founded in 2018 by Halima Iqbal and Farwah Tapal, is gender-inclusive fintech creating alternative financial solutions for the empowerment of the underprivileged and underserved. Halima is a former investment banker while Farwah is a design strategist.
Idea behind Oraan
CEO Halima Iqbal said that they decided to set up Oraan after they realized that a vast majority of the country’s population struggles to access financial services simply because the services and the products are not designed for them.
In 2018, the team realized that women despite being almost half of the country’s population, were not catered by the financial products already available in the markets. Oran then designed products and services to specifically cater demands and requirements of women.
“We realized that by digitizing committees we can make money and savings simple and achievable for everyone and empower women by offering them a safe, reliable and flexible digital solution” the team said while sharing the Idea behind Oraan.
The startup has digitalized the Rotating Saving and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) – the traditional committee system of Pakistan. The company now plans to launch other financial products especially catering to women, in an effort to become “the country’s women-first digital, social bank.”
Recently, Oraan was selected for the Regulatory Sandbox program of the SECP. The company serves a community of over 10,000 savers from all over Pakistan, and 84% of them are women.
Commenting on Oraan raising $3 million, former special assistant to the prime minister on digital Pakistan Tania Aidrus termed the development a “big milestone” for women in tech, entrepreneurship and “millions that have been financially excluded”.