PostEx, a Pakistani fintech and logistics startup, has announced that it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from leading institutional investors.

The startup said its initiative was aimed at solving challenges around cash on delivery with instant and upfront payments "by scaling its one-stop shop for financing and logistics solutions for e-commerce platforms".

The round was led by MSA Capital, an investor in Uber and Klarna among other major tech companies, with participation from the UAE-based Shorooq Partners, Pakistan-focused Zayn Capital, Dubai-headquartered VentureSouq, PNO Ventures, 92Ventures as well as the CEO of Arbisoft, Yasser Bashir.

PostEx says it is working to solve the problems of cash recovery cycles and working capital constraints that hamper businesses’ scaling by providing upfront payment through cash on delivery.

Founded by Omer Khan, Saad Mahmood, Babar Razzaq and Adil Naseem, the startup plans to utilise the funds to grow its products and bring depth to its existing technology-based CoD financing platform. Currently operating with a team of over 150 members, it plans to further grow its team as it scales to new clients and services.

Khan said, “Pakistan’s e-commerce landscape is rapidly evolving and lack of access to financing opportunities is hampering the growth of online merchants and e-commerce landscape broadly."

"Our goal is to be the first and last source of funds of fast-growing e-commerce businesses to meet all their capital requirements to accelerate their growth.”

“This is complemented by an in-house logistics fleet for e-commerce companies, thereby helping them grow through easy and instant access to cash and liquidity,” the startup said in its statement.

“In a primarily cash-based economy, running a business online comes with challenges of cash recovery cycles, impeding scaling due to working capital constraints. Challenges on the last-mile delivery front also lead to high cancellations and lack of financing options adversely affects the growth of e-commerce businesses in Pakistan," added the statement.

Tim Chen of MSA Capital said the rapid growth of e-commerce in Pakistan was being held back by high levels of CoD.

"PostEx’s integrated instant payments with logistics is a model we have backed globally to resolve the hurdles posed by CoD and [we] believe that Omer and team have the execution capabilities to build a regional leader," he added.

Co-founder and managing partner at Zayn Capital, Faisal Aftab, affirmed that PostEX was solving key problems for the rapidly scaling e-commerce market in Pakistan through its factoring and logistics solution.

Partner at Shorooq Partners, Tamer Azer, also hailed the Post-Ex for representing "the perfect intersection for our views on the potential of the Pakistani market as well as our deep appreciation for infrastructure support organisations in the e-commerce industry."

PostEx said it had also introduced a digital payments solution that “enables businesses to collect payments online from consumers through PostEx’s checkout plugins.”