Karachi based fintech Safepay and Lahore based food delivery startup Byte raise $150,000 investment each after receiving support from Y Combinator.
Karachi-based Safepay now plans to become the Stripe of Pakistan after becoming the first fintech from Pakistan to have graduated from Y Combinator and become part of YC’s summer 2020 batch. $150,000 investment has been raised by them as part of the program.
Pakistani Byte, a dark-kitchen-powered food delivery startup has also been part of Y Combinator S20 raising $150,000 in the process. It is the first time that two Pakistani startups have made it to the YC batch.
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Safepay wants to build a Stripe for Pakistan
Safepay was founded in 2019 by Ziyad Parekh and Raza Naqvi and is a payment gateway for online businesses, enabling them to receive (card) payments from their customers. It has built easy-to-use developer-friendly solutions that allow online businesses to set up payment integrations with their website or mobile app in minutes. Safepay also offers plugins to make integration even easier for platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Opencart, and WordPress.
“We’ve built an elegant, composable solution that’s focused on developers and delivers a robust, scalable and flexible payments integration,” notes Safepay’s website, adding that the online businesses using them can leave the nuances and security around payments to them, “We eliminate needless complexity and extraneous details, you can get up and running with Safepay in just a couple of minutes.”
While speaking to MENbytes, Ziyad Parekh, the co-founder of Safepay said that over 270 merchants are using their solution currently that includes brands like Ego and Kitchen Cuisine, “We’re growing considerably quickly each month processing over 5000 transactions in July alone. We’re extremely humbled by the demand for our services and are now focusing on growing the team to reach more merchants and help them receive digital payments.”
He also told that they have been growing 40 percent month over month and process total payments of $200,000 in July.
Ziyad also discussed the experience of working with Y Combinator, “It was fantastic. This was YC’s first completely remote batch (due to Covid-19) but it worked out especially well for us since Raza, my co-founder, was in Karachi and was able to progress the business from there while I was in SF handling the engineering and YC commitments. They really do an amazing job with founders and provide the exact guidance you need to kickstart your business.”
He added, “Our fellow batch mates provided us with insights into their own unique businesses and the connections that we formed will prove to be invaluable in the future”.
Byte – Order Delicious Food Everyday
Besides Safepay, Byte was a part of Y Combinator summer 2020 batch and is the first Pakistani consumer internet startup to have been backed by Y-Combinator.
Byte is building on-demand food delivery from virtual kitchens or dark kitchens in Pakistan. Using virtual kitchens, Byte is aiming to make food delivery affordable and accessible to everyone across Pakistan. At the moment, Byte is operating at a limited scale in Lahore only.
Smackin Fried’ Chicken, Biryani Bowls, Filppin’ Hot Pizza, and Just Wing It are some of the famous food brands listed on Byte’s mobile application.
Byte’s founder, Safee Shah, who previously led Uber in Pakistan, has expressed optimism that the startup will soon make its mark in the country’s online food delivery space that is dominated by both local and international players such as Cheetay, Eat Mubarak, and Foodpanda.
Y-Combinator is an American startup accelerator headquartered in Mountain View, California, that has launched more than 2000 startups including Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, and Twitch.
