Bazaar, a Pakistani B2B Platform, raises $70m in Series B

By Leandra Monteiro

Bazaar, Pakistan’s B2B e-commerce and FinTech platform has raised $70 million in a Series B financing led by Dragoneer Investment Group and Tiger Global Management. Through its expanding footprint of digital products and last-mile infrastructure, Bazaar provides procurement, fulfilment, operating software, digital lending, and supply chain products to merchants and suppliers in Pakistan. This investment, which comes just 6 months after its historic Series A, takes Bazaar’s total institutional funding to over $100 million.

Existing investors, including Indus Valley Capital, Defy Partners, Acrew Capital, Wavemaker Partners, B&Y Venture Partners and Zayn Capital also participated in the round.

“We are thrilled to support Bazaar’s vision of building an end-to-end commerce and fintech platform for millions of unbanked and offline merchants in Pakistan,” said Christian Jensen, Partner at Dragoneer Investment Group. “Bazaar’s pace of geographic expansion and new product development is a testament to the rare talent and culture Hamza and Saad have cultivated at Bazaar.”

Bazaar’s mission is to build an operating system for traditional retail in Pakistan. This retail economy, worth over $170 billion, is primarily offline and mostly served through 5 million SMEs across the country. This merchant base, which is the lifeline of Pakistan’s economy, also lacks access to formal financial services in a country that hosts the world’s third-largest unbanked population.

“We believe that Pakistan is at an inflection point in its tech ecosystem development. Bazaar is tapping into the massive merchant opportunity and is leading the charge in the country. We are excited to back their incredible team and phenomenal growth in such a short span of time,” said John Curtius, partner at Tiger Global Management.

“We are humbled and excited to continue on the path to create a generation defining story for Pakistan. With significant backing of two of the largest venture growth funds in the world, we believe this will continue to change the narrative on the country and inspire countless more and bigger stories in near future. This is a result of the trust and partnership of our colleagues, suppliers and most importantly our customers – the small merchants who are the backbone of our economy.” said the founders, Hamza and Saad.

With the fresh round of funding, Bazaar plans to expand into more cities across Pakistan, launch new marketplace categories, scale its lending offerings, and accelerate new product development.