PakWheels.com, Pakistan’s auto portal raises US$ 3.5 million from Malaysia based VC

The Indian startup ecosystem is at a very exciting stage and it remains our main focus of coverage. But we've recently expanded overseas coverage and regularly take a look at what is happening in neighbouring counties (for instance, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Africa, etc). In a recent development, Pakistan based PakWheels.com has closed one of the largest venture capital investment deals into a Pakistan technology venture. Frontier Digital Ventures, a Malaysia based venture capital fund focused on online classifieds businesses in the emerging and frontier markets, will invest US$3.5 Million into PakWheels.com

Over the last 10 years, PakWheels.com has helped millions of Pakistanis buy & sell cars and bikes, read automotive reviews and news, check automotive prices and find solutions to their automotive needs. The site gets about 18 million views monthly and has a large following. Despite the introduction of competing classifieds websites by giants like Naspers, Schibsted and other international internet firms, PakWheels.com has managed to grow its market share.

Muhammad Raza Saeed, Co-Founder and CEO of PakWheels.com, said while commenting on the dealPakistan's internet user base is expected to grow to 100 million users by 2019 and we want to be the go-to place for anything and everything to do with wheels for this online population. This round of funding will help us strengthen our leadership position, improve existing services and build new offerings. Think Wheels, Think PakWheels.

Pakistan is often overlooked but it has some promising statistics to back itself:

• Pakistan is world's 6th most populous country
• Pakistan has 25-30 million internet users expected to grow to 100 million by 2019
• Pakwheels is one of the largest site in Pakistan with 18 million page views / month, 30,000+ listings per month.

CEO and Founder of Frontier Digital Ventures, Shaun Di Gregorio says, “PakWheels.com epitomizes the kind of business that Frontier Digital Ventures is seeking to invest in. We love frontier and emerging markets and have a wealth of expertise and a proven track record of extracting value in the opportunities these markets present, so we are really looking forward to working with the team to take the portal to its full potential.”

The investment by Frontier Digital Ventures follows a recent trend of investments by international seed stage funds and angel investors into tech focused Pakistani start-ups. Frontier Digital’s earlier invested in a real estate portal of Pakistan- Zameen.com, and Kima Venture’s funding of Shopistan and computer vision products company Eyedeus Labs are recent examples.

Website: PakWheels