Colabs, a Lahore-based co-working space startup, has raised $3 million, bringing its total funding to $4 million.
Colabs provides co-working spaces and other services to help startups and freelancers launch and expand their businesses. The company plans to provide a software-as-a-service offering to help businesses with back-office tasks such as company registration, talent procurement and management, payroll processing, and legal and tax compliance. It also intends to add more people, including expanding the product team for its SaaS workspace business solution, which is now out of beta.
The Lahore-based startup now intends to construct a tech layer on top of all of these offerings to provide them to startups, freelancers, and other businesses across the country with the new financing.
“We started Colabs to assist accelerate the Pakistani startup ecosystem, and we’re proud of what we’ve achieved in a little over three years,” said Omar Shah, co-founder, and CEO of Colabs. Even though we’re mostly known as coworking spaces, we’ve laid a solid basis for freelancers, startups, and even foreign corporations looking to enter Pakistan to launch and manage their enterprises. Colabs may now be used by anyone wishing to create a business in Pakistan not only as a place to work but also as a partner to manage their many back-office duties.”
Colabs also intends to use the funding to expand throughout Pakistan, beginning with coworking spaces in Karachi and Islamabad. In the next two years, it hopes to have a community of over 10,000 people. Since its inception, the organization claims to have organized over 250 startup events across Pakistan, attracting over 200,000 people to its premises. Through several efforts, it intends to continue to assist Pakistan’s startup environment. Cogrow, an online portal that would combine and list companies, investment firms, and IT employment, is the first of these projects.
“The first time I visited Colabs, I found the community and enthusiasm to be a microcosm of the fast-growing Pakistani tech sector,” stated Aatif Awan, Founder and Managing Partner of Indus Valley Capital. We’re excited to work with the Colabs team to help them create the premier platform and community for Pakistani tech startups, freelancers, and international corporations growing into Pakistan.”
“I have attentively observed Colabs grow into one of the important participants in Pakistan’s startup ecosystem,” said Faisal Aftab, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Zayn Capital. We had the good fortune of meeting several of the startups we invested in at their offices. We are pleased to assist Omar and his team in servicing tens of thousands of startups and freelancers across Pakistan as they continue to perform fantastic work to promote the growth of the startup ecosystem here.”
