Indus Valley Capital raises $17.5 million to invest in early-stage Pakistani startups

Published 01 Mar,2021 via MENAbytes - Indus Valley Capital, a Pakistan-focused VC founded and led by former LinkedIn executive Aatif Awan, has raised $17.5 million for its maiden fund. The fund had a target size of $15 million and was oversubscribed with over 75 individual investors from all around the world.

Aatif had started IVC in early 2019, a year after leaving LinkedIn. He spent seven years at the company growing it to half a billion members. As its VP of Growth, International, and Data products, he oversaw multiple strategic areas at the technology firm including international expansion in markets like China, Germany, and Japan. He also led the product integrations between LinkedIn and Microsoft after Microsoft’s $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016.

When he left LinkedIn, he was still considering different options for his next play in the Silicon Valley. He had taken a year off to travel and spend time with his parents in Pakistan. During his stay here, he started meeting founders who were reaching out to seek advice on growing their products. After spending a few months in Pakistan, Aatif realized that Pakistan was on the verge of a once-in-a-lifetime transformation and decided that he wants to play his role in growing the startup ecosystem of the country.

That’s how Indus Valley Capital was born and today with its final close, it has become the largest closed fund focused on Pakistan.

The investors in IVC’s debut fund include Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and founders, executives, and operators from leading technology companies including Facebook, Google, Stripe, Coinbase, Uber, Careem, InstaCart, LinkedIn, Reddit, Dropbox, Atlassian, WebFlow, Zillow and Oracle. Indus Valley Capital has not disclosed the names of other investors but has said that they include three unicorn founders.

“Partners at two multi-billion dollar VC funds and early investors in Careem and Souq are also among the limited partners,” noted IVC’s statement.

Indus Valley Capital’s strategy to raise money from technology and finance professionals is unusual, to say the least – and given the interest (with $2.5 million in oversubscribed capital), it seems to have paid off. The majority of first-time fund managers usually rely on family offices and development finance institutions for fundraising.

Indus Valley Capital Fund I

The fund is sector-agnostic and invests in pre-seed, seed, and Series A startups. It has been active since early 2019 and has led or co-led investments in companies operating across different sectors including transportation, logistics, B2B retail, fitness, fintech, and remote work. What stands out about IVC is that two of its portfolio companies have gone on to raise the largest seed and Series A rounds of the country in follow-on funding.

Its first investment Airlift had raised $12 million in a Series A led by First Round Capital, a US VC that was an early investor in companies like Uber, Square, and Notion. Airlift was First Round Capital’s only investment in Asia in a decade. The company that operates a mass transit and logistics platform had then raised another $10 million in an extension of its Series A.

Bazaar, a B2B ecommerce platform, raised $6.5 million in one of the largest seed rounds of the region, co-led by Global Founders Capital, in January earlier this year. Indus Valley Capital was the first cheque in the company. It had led Bazaar’s $1.3 million pre-seed in June 2020.

Indus Valley Capital spends two weeks (after the first pitch) on average to share a term sheet with the startups it wants to invest in.

Explaining why they do that, Aatif said, “Speed is a defining characteristic of startups that turn out to be rocketships. When we find a potential rocketship, we drop everything else and focus on wrapping up the fundraising process quickly so the founders can get back to building the company.”

The firm in addition to providing quick access to capital also helps its portfolio companies with product strategy and growth, as well as raising follow-on capital. This is where the network of operators and investors IVC has built as its limited partner becomes really valuable.

“IVC connects founders with operators who have solved similar problems and scaled companies in their domains. It can also make intros to some of the best investors in the world through the extensive networks of its LP,” stated Aatif in a conversation with MENAbytes.

Usman Gul, the cofounder and CEO of Airlift thinks that Indus Valley Capital is bringing a wave of venture capital that is aligned with the global venture playbook, “In our case, IVC has been a true partner in authoring the right fundraising strategy at every stage of the business, from early-stage angel financings to late-stage rounds.”

Saad Jangda, the co-founder of Bazaar thinks of Aatif as a friend and mentor, “In almost every conversation and decision, he has recommended what’s best for us and Bazaar, over something that benefits him or IVC. Even though it sounds very straightforward, it is something that’s very difficult to find in our ecosystem. Aatif’s founder-friendliness is the biggest highlight for us. He’s always a phone call away for anything that we need to talk about (or even rant, if needed).”

In one of his recent replies to a conversation on Twitter, Aatif had said that he was doing his best to be the VC he would’ve wanted if he was a startup founder. But being a VC is just a means to an end for him, “Our mission at Indus Valley Capital is to help founders build the most transformational companies in Pakistan, and turn Pakistan into one of the top five technology hubs globally in the process. Is that ambitious? Sure, and that’s why it’s worth doing this rather than simply being another VC in the Silicon Valley,” said Aatif, speaking to MENAbytes.

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