PriceOye.pk, a Pakistani e-commerce platform, announced on Tuesday that it had raised $7.9 million in a seed funding round headed by JAM Fund, a US-based investment firm.
It also attracted a number of unicorn founders, most notably Peter Thiel, the creator of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, who made it his first investment in Pakistan.
In addition to previous investors Fatima Gobi Ventures, SOSV, and Artistic Ventures, Beenext—an early investor in Indonesian e-commerce platform Tokopedia—DG Daiwa, Mantis VC, HOF Capital, Palm Drive Capital, Atlas Ventures, Immad Akhud of Mercury Bank, and Asif Keshodia of Souq—participated in the seed funding round.
“PriceOye is a regulated marketplace for electronics that offers suggestions depending on the needs of the customer, assisting them in making wise purchases. According to a press release, the product recommendation engine has been one of the key factors in attracting more than two million monthly users to PriceOye.pk’s site. Visitors utilize it to find products to buy.
The Adnan and Adeel Shaffi-founded firm says its income has increased by 500% year over year. It intends to maintain this trend by introducing more products and categories to the platform and growing its partner network.
The existence of fake goods and price differences, which provide a broken shopping experience for the majority of Pakistani consumers, are two of the largest issues with buying consumer electronics in Pakistan. Adnan Shaffi, co-founder and CEO of PriceOye, was quoted in the release as stating that the managed marketplace helps customers make better shopping decisions by providing access to authentic products at amazing prices.
PriceOye has the greatest net promoter score, which measures consumer experience and loyalty, and was thus created to bring transparency and convenience to the buying experience. We are thrilled to collaborate with new investors who have put their faith in us as we prepare for the following stage of our expansion,” he continued.
“Within a short period of time, PriceOye has grown exponentially and cemented its position as the leading national company in online consumer electronics,” the founder and partner of Mantis VC Alex Pall continued. We are pleased to support PriceOye in its effort to transform the way Pakistanis shop.
It’s always a challenging decision for consumers to spend significant sums of money on high-value products while being uncertain about their legitimacy, said Seamon Chan, managing partner of Palm Drive Capital, which has funded e-commerce giant Jet.com, in response to the investment. The creators of PriceOye, Adnan and Adeel, motivated me with their mission to “create transparency and bring convenience to customers when it comes to shopping for consumer electronics.”
According to the press release, Pakistan does not currently have a nationwide chain of specialty electronics stores like BestBuy in the US or Croma in India. “In the US, about 50% of consumer electronics are sold online, whereas the Pakistani market, which is primarily offline, has a completely fragmented shopping experience for consumers.”
According to the report, Pakistan’s consumer electronics market is expected to spend $8.5 billion in 2020 and expanded at a 7.1 percent compound annual growth rate between 2016 and 2020.
