Online ticketing platform Sastaticket.pk announced its Series A funding of USD 1.5mn dollars by Malaysian venture capital company Gobi Partners.
This investment is the first (of many they say!), by Gobi Partners, in the local Pakistani startup ecosystem and another entry they make to their TaqwaTech portfolio. Speaking at the press conference earlier today, Thomas G. Tsao, Founding Partner of the VC Fund said that Pakistan is identified as one of the most promising markets in the emerging markets region, and this move comes as one of many investments they look forward to make in the local space.
He confidently stated,
“Gobi has a lot of success investing in the online travel space. We believe the conditions that led to the growth of the giant OTAs in China are also present in Pakistan. Sastaticket has a real opportunity to become of the first unicorns out of the country.”
Sastaticket.pk is was founded in September 2016 by the Mehkri brothers duo, Shazil and Bilal. The idea was to offer domestic travellers a convenient platform to book and pay for flights and hotels instantly online for destinations across Pakistan. Since its launch, they have experienced a remarkable growth in GMV at 125% YoY, and number of orders at 155% YoY. With over one million flight searches per month, SastaTicket claims to be Pakistan’s largest OTA in terms of flight booking volume.
Shazil Mehkri, commenting on this milestone, said,
“With this round of funding and access to Gobi’s wealth of experience in the online travel sector across Asia, we are excited to enhance our products and services. This funding will help us increase our scale, recruit top talent, and increase our development speed in critical segments such as Islamic tourism”
The announcement was made at The Nest I/O’s startup conference held in Karachi on November 11-12. Gobi Partners was participating as one of the sponsors for the event.
