OPINION
Ammar H. Khan
The unicorns are here and it’s time to invest in our tech infrastructure
The hope here is that whatever worked in those jurisdictions can also work in Pakistan – often because the real actionable valuable insights are below the surface. Additionally, and more importantly, figuring out whether the necessary hard and soft infrastructure exists is too often taken for granted in other markets. That critical vital valuable infrastructure often does not exist in Pakistan. Entrepreneurs who solve Pakistan’s infrastructure problem present the most attractive investable opportunities in tech today. Building a technology stack on top of a physical and knowledge infrastructure is easier and has been demonstrated to work in market after market. But building the same technology stack on a weak or non-existent physical and knowledge infrastructure will limit growth. In some markets a high literacy rate, or universal access to broadband provides an enabling environment for deployment of a technology stack, but in other jurisdictions where literacy is low, and access to broadband is sparse, the same ight now there’s a super exciting cambrian explosion enabling environment does not exist. Building out this infrahappening in Pakistan’s technology space. Dozens structure stack in Pakistan is a multi-billion dollar high-return of startups going from zero to one in Pakistan. Every investor opportunity. few days a passionate entrepreneur raises several It’s always the right time for starting an AgriTech company, million dollars, powered with an idea, a hope, and a given Pakistan’s natural competitive advantage and the obvious dream. Pakistan is the most exciting country in the opportunities across the entire value chain from pre-farm, farm, global startup space right now. and post-farm. Yet these AgriTech startups will have trouble These are certainly reasons to feel good about Pakistan’s tech scaling up to glory in absence of more transparent commodiinvestment scene as startups go from zero to one. At the same time, ty markets, formal credit, information symmetry, substantial there are some big hurdles in Pakistan for tech startups in going storage, and specialized transport and related supply chain from one to ten. This potential for exponential value creation, beinfrastructure for farm to market operations. The infrastructure yond the first headline round, is why investors like us will be drawn enabling scale is a gigantic near-term investor opportunity which deeper into Pakistan. Most ideas and execution roadmaps are often we hope entrepreneurs chase down. Counter-intuitively for most a replica, or inspired from high-income or middle-income markets. tech entrepreneurs’ views these days, the infrastructure layers are the lower hanging fruit. FinTech is the furthest along in having a usable stack due to the introduction of smart bold recent moves by State Bank of Pakistan, such as the launch of Raast. There remain substantial infrastructure opportunities such as the identity layer. We believe there is a mega opportunity for startups that identify and build and rent out parts of the full The writer is the chief risk officer foundational stack required upon which FinTechs can go to market with confidence. for Karandaaz Pakistan, an Similarly, smartphone penetration is growing and bandwidth is spreading but is far organisation that seeks to promote from ubiquity; an unfortunate regressive taxation regime will discourage full potential of financial inclusion in Pakistan. He smartphones. has previously worked at several Low literacy rates also hold back smartphone penetration particularly in agriculture financial institutions in Pakistan, and everyday commerce, thereby requiring one to be more realistic about utilization rates. both in commercial banking and In parallel, smart startups will figure out how to overcome the literacy challenge, and, decapital markets
Investing in the Pakistan tech infrastructure stack that will power our tech unicorns
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