the downsizing rigmarole continues

profit report ahmad ahmadaNi instead of announcing a quick and effective strategy to deal with the ongoing shortage of petroleum products in various parts of the country, the minister of state for petroleum musadik malik has preferred to issue a warning of strict action against the hoarding of petroleum products while addressing a news conference in the federal capital on wednesday.

malik said that the country has sufficient stocks of petrol and diesel to meet the needs of the country. “we have stocks of petrol to meet the needs of 20 days while the high speed diesel (hsd) stock is enough to cater the demands of 29 days.” warning hoarders of petroleum products with serious consequences, he said the government will cancel licenses if someone is found involved in creating artificial shortage. he said that these hoarders are earning

g in most recent round of layoffs, daraz and Byte Become latest targets

profit report

Nisma Riaz when it rains, it pours. and pakistan’s startup ecosystem has caught the worst part of it for the past year or so. in the latest in a series of lows, e-commerce platforms daraz and Byte have been experiencing serious downsizing, whereby they have cut 11% and about 30% of their workforces respectively. earlier, tech giant foodpanda also discretely laid off employees as the startup this looming threat of unemployment has both the companies’ employees teetering on the precipice of getting fired. apart from the overall economic slowdown in pakistan, what else can be causing such pressing job insecurity in the startup industry? the last year ended with a total of an estimated $355 million raised in disclosed funding across 57 deals by pak- istan’s startups in 2022, according to data compiled by vc and insights firm invest2innovate (i2i). compared to more than $380 million of funding in 2021, last year’s numbers translate to a drop of about 6.6%. this might not seem like a significant drop, however, when considered in light of the expected increase in funding every year, even a small drop seems sizable. the tl;dr below explains how the last quarter of 2022 recorded the lowest amounts of startup funding in the last four years. for those who thought that last year was the final step in the opposite direction, with prominent startups like airlift and swvl shutting down operations in pakistan, the worst is yet to come. after last year’s abysmal performance, the situation seems to be worsening this year. startup funding is expected to drop even further and companies, like the ones discussed above, are reacting by prioritising profits over growth and slashing their workforces. we might be headed towards an economic crisis as bad as the one during covid. according to insights, asia encountered a 70.52% year-on-year and a 38.72% quarter-on-quarter decline in startup funding in 2022. moreover, the last quarter recorded the poorest performance of startup funding in asia in five years, whereby only $16.3B was raised. the deal count of 2,371 has also been the lowest count recorded since the pandemic lockdowns across the continent. this shows that venture capital investment all over asia has been declining. cB insights’ data shows that pakistan recorded the lowest investment of $15.15m in the last quarter of 2022 compared to emerging markets. while the rest were northwards of $100 million, except for Brazil, which was at $600m, pakistan only recorded $15.15 million. moreover, pakistan also experienced the steepest decline in quarter-to-quar- ter investment and the second-worst decline in year-on-year investment. this slowdown can be attributed to the global recession we are living through. it can be argued that the domino effect of a global economic disrespect from people by creating artificial shortages, adding that these shortages of petroleum products are only due to illegal hoarding. he explained that all this has been happening while the government has been taking measures to ensure availability of oil and gas in the country. when the state takes action, hoarders will be found weeping while conducting press conferences, malik warned them. amidst the dire shortage of petroleum products, the minister it seems, chose to change the narrative and lay the blame on hoarders. he rejected reports of shortages across the country and termed them ‘rumours’. he dispelled the impression that the government has been planning to jack up prices of oil on the demand of the international monetary funds (imf). he said prices of petroleum products are determined in accordance with those of the global oil market.

What has been happening in Pakistan’s startup ecosystem?

Why is this happening?

CONTINUED ON slowdown, paired with the dreadful local macroeconomic crisis is cascading down to pakistan’s startup ecosystem, explaining the aggressive downsizing in daraz and Byte. more could also be coming.