Pakistani B2B marketplace for mom and pop stores Tajir, cofounded by brothers Babar and Ismail Khan, announced today that it has raised $17 million in a Series A round led by Kleiner Perkins. Other investors in the round include YC Continuity, AAVCF, Fatima Gobi Ventures, Flexport, Golden Gate Ventures, Liberty City Ventures, VentureSouq, and angel investors including Under 30 honoree and CEO of Figma Dylan Field, and Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen.
The Lahore, Pakistan-based Tajir’s customers are mom and pop stores which struggle to purchase inventory.
“When consumers walk into small mom and pop stores they often find the products they want out of stock,” Babar, who serves as the company’s CEO, says. “Stores are often unable to provide the brands that consumers actually want to buy since retail is so fragmented in Pakistan.”
According to him, shop owners often spend hours to make all the orders, and sometimes they would have to close their stores, or find a friend or relative to go to the wholesaler physically —a pattern that would repeat too often and would take too much time.
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