South Asia Investor Review

Atoms shoes, founded by a young Pakistani couple, has attracted $8.1 million investment, according to  media reports . Atoms' investors include  Silicon Valley  based venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian.  It's the latest success in the entrepreneurial journey that Sidra Qasim and Waqas Ali started in Pakistani town of Okara around 2010. Sidra Qasim and Waqas Ali Wearing Atoms' Sneakers Okara, Pakistan: Atoms.com story began in 2010 when twenty-something Waqas Ali met a shoemaker Muhammad Hussain in Okara at a local panchayat (council meeting), according to Dawn. Waqas brought up the idea of selling shoes online but it did not particularly appeal to Hussain who thought people want to touch, smell, wear and feel shoes before buying them. Waqas soon dropped out of college and persuaded Sidra to join him in pursuing his dream of selling shoes online. They chose "Hometown" as the brandname for their shoes and set up thei...

The Organization of Pakistani-American Entrepreneurs (OPEN) hosted a dinner on Wednesday Feb 20, 2019, for young tech entrepreneurs from Pakistan who came this year to  Silicon Valley  to attend StartUp Grind Global Conference. About 50 people, including 20 from Pakistan, attended the event. L to R: Shahjahan Chaudhry, Jahan Ara, Riaz Haq, Rehan Jalil StartUp Grind: StartUp Grind describes itself as a "global community of entrepreneurs connecting 1.5 million entrepreneurs in over 500 chapters". It has chapters in all major Pakistani cities.  StartUp Grind  organizes a global conference every year in Silicon Valley. Young Pakistani Entrepreneurs with Riaz Haq Pakistani participation in this conference is growing with 40 delegates this year, up from 24 last year. Arzish Azam, founder of Ejad Lab, organizes this annual pilgrimage of Pakistani techies to Silicon Valley every year under the banner of Pak-US Technology Exchange. Participants pay their own e...