Fintech SadaPay raises funds before of rollout

The startup scored USD 10.7 million in a seed-extension round. The funding announcement comes a day after the central bank allowed it to offer financial services through its smartphone app.

The South Asian nation is seeing a rush of investors eager to back startups in the nation, one of the last large untapped markets, as per the press release. Fintechs are emerging in Pakistan, which has the world’s third-largest unbanked population, according to the World Bank.

The opportunity lay in population of young people with smartphones, high cellular-broadband penetration, sleepy incumbent banks, and policy reform by the government to support digitisation. The fintech started operating in 2021 in pilot mode, which restricted users to 10,000, before it got the Electronic Money Institution license from the State Bank of Pakistan.

Unlike conventional banks, Sadapay allows customers three free cash withdrawals in a month, offers round-the-clock in-app chat support and opens an account in two minutes. Its prior backers Recharge Capital, Kingsway Capitaunitl, and Raptor Group added to their investment. The startup plans to more than double its employee headcount to over 250 people by the end of 2022.