Bootcamp Speaker-Meena Tariq

Title

Understanding Fundraising in Pakistan

About the Guest Speaker – Meena Tariq

Ms. Meenah Tariq is a BC ambassador and a Partner at Karavan.VC, a venture capital fund actively investing in high-growth startups across Pakistan. She has invested in eight startups in Pakistan up till now. Before this, she has worked with 100’s startups over the past few years. Meenah has completed her bachelor's in Business Administration from FAST Islamabad, she has worked at Ufone in the accounting department for four years. Moreover, having an entrepreneurship degree from Babson College After post-graduation she worked as head of the strategy and head of an accelerator. After that, she joined the World Bank as a consultant and advisor of entrepreneurship.  simultaneously, She is helping design the Women Entrepreneurs Financing Initiative (WeFi) at the World Bank – a $3M project for Pakistan looking at access to early-stage finance for women entrepreneurs, the meaning of ‘investor readiness' in Pakistan's context, and strengthening the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the country.

Key Points of Session

Ms. Meenah Tariq has joined the pak100 Bootcamp II, 2021 on 5th august as a guest speaker. The topic of her session was “Understanding Fundraising in Pakistan”. The session was held for 40 minutes.

She started the session by explaining the importance and usage of funds by giving fuel and vehicle examples. She said, “Funding is like fuel and you can utilize the fuel if you have the vehicle. If you can’t manufacture the vehicle then there is no use of fuel and if you have vehicle and fuel too and you have no idea how to drive it then all the resources will be wasted.” She stated Pakistan has a large population and country in underdevelopment its means there is a lot of opportunities. You can start any type of business in Pakistan and you will have millions of users in a short time. She proudly said other countries do not have the power of youth that we have in Pakistan. Before analyzing the funding, the basic step is to identify resources. She explained how most of the startups raised their funding and their pros and cons like bootstrapping, friends and family, bank loans, lines of credit, etc. She explained the term angels in fundraising and its pros and cons. Along with all of that she also told the participant the steps they should follow before going for funding and then what investor wants from the startups.

Meenah concluded the session by saying “The more work you put in the less your chances of exploitation are”. She advised the participants to reach out to the experts before fundraising so that they can avoid exploitation.

Speaker's Speech