The sudden shutdown of its most valued startup is bad news for Pakistan’s fledgling ecosystem. But local investors say Airlift is not indicative of the industry.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit Pakistan in early 2020, Airlift, then a mass-transit startup that operated an Uber-like service for buses, was in a tight spot. “The big question at the time was: Do we keep operating? Do we keep burning or do we pull back?” Airlift’s co-founder Usman Gul recalled in an interview with Rest of World on June 29. Gul and his team took a bold step, pivoting Airlift to instant delivery, to meet the needs of millions stuck at home.
It was a gutsy decision, but it paid off: Airlift went on to become Pakistan’s most valued startup and raised $85 million in the single largest round the country had ever seen.
But around two years after the company’s first pivot, faced with another changing economic landscape, Airlift failed to repeat history.
On July 12, Airlift announced it was shutting down, blaming the “global recession and [the] recent downturn in capital markets.” In a statement, the company said that until early July, it had a “clear path forward” and was in talks to raise “Series C1 financing.” But “amidst rapidly deteriorating conditions in the global economy,” several investors expressed uncertainty around their disbursement schedules. So, a complete shutdown was “inevitable.” Airlift employed nearly 300 people and had more than 1,000 additional staff across its warehouses and...
Read Full Story: https://restofworld.org/2022/airlifts-collapse-shocks-pakistans/
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