Pakistan’s top performing startup, Airlift, announced on Tuesday that it had permanently shut operations in the country after day-to-day running finances dried up and an attempt to raise fresh funds failed last week. The grocery delivery startup had raised the largest financing of $85 million in the country’s history in the Series B funding round in August 2021.
Popular bus-sharing service Swvl announced on Thursday that it would be “pausing” daily rides within Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Faisalabad from Friday (June 3) “in light of the global economic downturn”. The announcement comes as the government has increased the prices of petroleum products by Rs30 per litre in a move aimed at placating the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an economic bailout.
Airlift, a bus ride-hailing service has suspended all ts operations across Pakistan until April 6 in a bid to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. The online ride-hailing service announced this in a notification sent to users. The decision was taken after rising coronavirus cases in the country. The notification sent out asked customers to avoid bus rides because they pose a high-risk environment.
Airlift, a ride-hailing startup which connects passengers with buses on fixed-rate, just raised $12 million for their Series A financing. This funding is the largest ever for a Pakistani startup and so far one of the largest raised by any startup within the South Asian region. Currently, Airlift is operating in Lahore and Karachi only.