Tazah Technologies, a Lahore-based agriculture B2B startup, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $4.5 million in fresh funding, taking its pre-seed round to $6.5 million.

The $6.5-million raised is more than the total investment in all other agritech startups combined, said the company.

The funding round was led by Fatima Gobi Ventures, who co-led the round alongside Vibe Capital.

The investment also includes participation from UAE’s Shorooq Partners and Nuwa Capital (marking their first investment in Pakistan), Russia’s Ru-net, US-based Alter Global, Julian, Capital, Kinnow Capital, Early Grey Capital, K3 Fund, and some angel investors including Sahil Bloom, Siqi Chen, Matt Brezina, among others, reported MenaBytes.

Back in October, the startup had raised $2 million in a round led by Global Founders Capital and Zayn Capital.

Founded earlier this year by Abrar Bajwa and Mohsin Zaka, the startup is a B2B fresh produce marketplace that connects farmers to businesses.

“We aim to solve the extremely complex agriculture value chain end-to-end through tech, resulting in dividends for both farmers and businesses,” Tazah said on its website.

The year 2021 has been a boom period for Pakistan's startups, with multiple companies fetching multi-million dollars from both local and international investors.

Earlier this month, Lahore-based fashion e-commerce platform Clicky managed to raise $2.4 million in a pre-Series A round.

In the first nine months of the ongoing year, Pakistan's startups raised a record amount of funds at over $305 million, according to data compiled by Karachi-based Alpha Beta Core (ABCore), an early-stage tech-based investment firm.

The amount is over 1.5 times higher than the previous six years combined with investments focused on early-stage funding rounds, pointing to the growth potential, say experts.

Commenting on the investment, Abrar Bajwa, co-founder of Tazah, said, “We are excited to have the confidence of some of the most active investors in Pakistan... The new investment will help us accelerate our market dominance and execute some exciting projects that will help us improve our margins as we scale.”

The Lahore-based startup aims to utilise the funding to expand its coverage in Lahore and Karachi, launch new cities, and further enhance its tech.

“Our experience of leading large national teams and growing complex marketplaces has helped us tremendously in quickly scaling our business and building the capability to manage multi-city operations,” said Mohsin Zaka, co-founder of Tazah.

This article was first published in Business Recorder on December 22, 2021.