The IT Ministry’s PAKImpactInvest competition will feature top 30 selected startups from across Pakistan pitching for grand prizes, the ministry announced Monday. Ayub Ghauri, Executive Director of Netsol, and Omer Abedin, Chief Marketing Officer at Graana, are among the influential business leaders on the panel overseeing the competing startups.
The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications (MoITT) launched PAKImpactInvest, dubbed Pakistan’s first national investment platform, to open up new investment avenues and bridge the gap between entrepreneurs and investment opportunities by linking them with national and foreign investors. The project entails private-sector technical support in co-designing and launching the competition.
With SECP’s “ease of business” measures, existing tax exemptions for IT and IT-enabled services, expanding opportunities for local entrepreneurs in the form of public and private incubators/accelerators, and a significant increase in foreign venture capitalists investing in Pakistani startups, Pakistan has seen a surge in the number of startups launching with innovative ideas.
Pakistan’s IT exports have also skyrocketed, reaching a new high of $1.1 billion in the previous fiscal year, thanks to the growth of the startup community in Pakistan and initiatives like PAKImpactInvest.