Pakistani B2B warehousing and distribution startup, Oware has bagged $3.3 million in pre-seed funding. The investment came from Silicon Valley investors, including Flexport Fund and Ratio Ventures, along with strong global investors Seedstars International Ventures, The Osiris Group, Swiss Founders Fund, Reflect Ventures, +92 Ventures, Walled City Co, and other strategic angel investors also participated in the round.
Funds utilisation
The startup will use a part of its funding to increase its coverage. Already, Oware has grown its network to five cities that provide distribution to 75% of Pakistan’s population with same-day delivery and 85% of the population with next-day delivery. The startup is in plans to open up additional fulfilment centres to meet demand and increase coverage.
Also, the Karachi-based startup plans to scale operations to more geographies. With its recent funding, it will fuel product development and talent acquisition to innovate and simplify supply chains across Pakistan and beyond.
Raza Kazmi, co-founder at Oware, commented: “There is a huge opportunity in the B2B movement of goods across the region, but it remains immensely underserved. Local businesses remain trapped in an archaic and opaque environment dealing with antiquated supply chain systems that are no longer fit for purpose and remain slow, limited, and capital intensive. The time to set up operations is too long, there is limited visibility or tracking of orders and the execution of processes is inefficient in terms of speed and cost, which we are on a mission to solve”.
Co-founder Adil Nisar added. “To get to its end destination, a product has to move between several warehouses, fulfillment centers, and trucks. This complex ballet is managed by multiple businesses without interconnected systems. Our vision is to build a large scale connected world of distribution that enables a faster route to market for our customers.”
“Most warehouses in Pakistan today are run on paper or Excel. Companies must lease or buy a property, hire staff, and manage them. Expansion into new territories or capacity increases to support inventory fluctuations are slow and costly. This increases businesses’ cost of entry and cost of expansion. Oware solves this problem for Pakistani businesses. It brings a huge archaic industry straight into the 21st century world of on-demand flexibility and management visibility and insight. This is a big opportunity for Oware and an important part of the rapid ongoing modernization of Pakistan’s economy. We are excited to be among Oware’s investors and expect great success.” said Michel Friedman, partner at Reflect Ventures.
“Pakistan has a massive opportunity in logistics presented by the 2 million SMEs and the rise of e-commerce in the region. We believe that Oware has a solid position to be an integral layer to an ecosystem that’s becoming digitally enabled. We are proud to have been Adil’s and Raza’s early backers and thrilled for the journey ahead,” said Charlie Graham-Brown, CIO & Partner at Seedstars.
FedEx equivalent for B2B
Founded in June 2021 by Maersk and Careem alumni Raza Kazmi and Adil Nisar, Oware has built a FedEx equivalent for B2B, which is a game-changer for B2B warehousing and distribution. It empowers companies to grow through flexible warehousing and intelligent distribution, ensuring flexible response to demand fluctuations and faster and more affordable delivery of goods.
The startup provides businesses with scalable and tech-driven warehousing and distribution for B2B and retail through its connected fulfilment centres and third-party logistics providers. Companies can quickly start operations from more locations to reach more customers, without intense and complex logistics planning and capital investment restricting business growth.
Oware continues to build momentum and is growing its customer base working with a healthy mix of startups, manufacturers, traders, and retailers. They are using the platform to affordably store inventory close to their customers, along with picking, packing, and shipping to give them a one platform solution. They also get real-time visibility on stock levels and order statuses with visibility into the entire network.
