Pakistan's Startup Funding Winter — Correction or Crisis? After equity investment collapsed nearly 90% in two years, Pakistan's startups are being asked to prove whether they were ever built to last — or whether the money simply ran out before the truth caught up with the hype.

Abstract

For two heady years, Pakistan's startup scene behaved like it had joined the big leagues. Between 2021 and 2022, disclosed equity funding surged past $355 million, ride-hailing and grocery-delivery apps burned cash to chase growth, and "unicorn-in-waiting" became a favourite headline. Then the money simply stopped arriving.

By 2024, disclosed equity investment had fallen to roughly $22.5 million — a decline of almost 90 percent from the 2022 peak, and the lowest figure on record. Airlift, once the country's most-funded startup, had already shut down; by mid-2025, Careem quietly wound up the ride-hailing business that first put Pakistani tech on the global map. The question dividing founders, investors, and policymakers is no longer whether the boom ended. It is whether what came after is a healthy correction — or a slow-moving crisis.