Dear all,
I run JS Private Equity, the private equity arm of JS Group. We have one fund in Pakistan which raised US$158 million in 2006 from overseas investors and finished investing in 2011. We are currently raising our second fund. JS Group invests actively in private equity globally (primarily Pakistan, the Middle East and more recently in Africa and Latin America) although we are not a VC firm. Our focus is later stage investments of US$3-20 million. However, we do sometimes invest in VC as I and one of the other partners have a VC background from Asia where we used to manage US$430 million in VC funds until 2002. We haven't yet invested in tech VC in Pakistan but do so in other countries. We would love to support Pakistani companies. If you have businesses that need funding, please send through an exec summary to me and I can direct it to the right person on my team.
Ali
To the best of my knowledge/memory, I gathered the following after various discussions with TMT Ventures over a couple of years:
0. They raised a total of USD 5 million fund and had made 10 investments in total.
1. AKNM Tech was a successful venture/investment of TMT Ventures. It was/is one of the largest VAS based service providers in Pakistan.
2. There was another portfolio company which they sold to ME investors. Forget the name. Modest success, however, nothing compared to AKNM Tech.
3. 8 other investments were either shut down or sold to various investors for throw-away prices.
Reasons for not doing good (their own findings)
1. TMT was being run by a bunch of financial analysts; hence, not the right skills for a Tech VC business in a country like Pakistan.
2. They overstretched themselves by investing in 10 companies. In Pakistan, since u don’t have the eco-system, the VC has to be the God Father. I.e. the VC provides the Seed, Round A, Round B, etc.
3. So once u make the investment, you have to provide the start-up serious advice/mentorship/market strategy, and fund it all the way thru… They lacked in both the aspects…
In short, some of their bets were pretty decent in the space of Animation, Gaming, mobile commerce, online stock trading, etc. They just couldn’t execute (properly nurturing them) on them properly.
Sincerely,
Afaque Ahmed
Breezecom
Mobile: +92-321-2490320
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From: pakgrid@yahoogroups.com [mailto:pakgrid@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Zahir Syed
Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 12:12 PM
To: pakgrid@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [pakgrid] Venture Capital in Pakistan
As far as I know there are no VC in Pakistan.
There are 4-5 firms who have taken the VC license and only one TMT Ventures started its operations. Unfortunately, TMT ventures did not succeed.
Regards
Dr. Zahir Ali Syed
Co-Chair MIT Enterprise Forum of Pakistan
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 7:40 PM, nsaquib <nsaquib@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi,
Do we have any VCs in Pakistan? If yes i would like to know their information. Would be nice if some one can share some public information or private (PM).
I am interested to participate in a VC or if some one is interested to start a new VC in Pakistan, please contact me.
Thanks,
Najam
http://techtalk-ns.blogspot.com/
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