Pakistani embedded finance startup Neem has secured funding of $2.5 million. The company focuses on communities in industries including as agriculture, MSMEs, e-commerce, logistics, healthcare, and others.
Neem, the Pakistan-based integrated financial platform, has secured $2.5 million in a seed funding round to serve the country’s underbanked areas.
The Karachi-based firm focuses on communities in industries including as agriculture, MSMEs, e-commerce, logistics, healthcare, and others.
It provides a lending platform via which its partners may deliver bespoke loan solutions to consumers and SMEs.
Neem is also working on a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that will be live in December and will allow partners to incorporate wallets and payments as well as offer financial products like as insurance and savings that are tailored to the requirements of certain communities.
Nadeem Shaikh, Vladimira Briestenska, and Naeem Zamindar, who previously worked as fintech entrepreneurs, operators, and VCs, started Neem three years ago.
“Most [current] players provide a B2C solution; we offer a B2B2C one.”
The embedded banking market represents a $167 billion potential, according to Shaikh.
Because of COVID, Neem has been able to embed its financing services throughout the corporate and governmental sectors.
According to industry data, over 53 million Pakistanis are now unbanked.
Over time, the business hopes to expand outside Pakistan to help underbanked people in other developing countries.
SparkLabs Fintech of Hong Kong led the seed investment, which the business intends to use to expand its existing staff of 20 individuals, roll out the BaaS platform, and capitalize licenses.
Arif Habib, a Pakistani investment banking business, Cordoba Logistics and Ventures, Taarah Ventures, My Asia VC, Concept Vines, and Building Capital also participated in the capital round.
Outrun Ventures partners, Mentors Fund founding partner, and Seccl fintech veteran and ex-CEO also joined in the seed round.
William Chu, managing partner, SparkLabs Fintech, stated, “We have strong conviction about Neem’s mission to enable financial wellness for underbanked communities, and have full confidence in the Neem leadership team to realize this vision amidst macro challenges around the world.”
The business was bootstrapped, before it got the seed funding.
