Founded in 2011, Invest2Innovate, is a support organization designed for the entrepreneurship ecosystem and committed to supporting startups through various programs, resources and training. Till date they have raised an astounding $16.5 million in funding and trained almost 1000 high impact entrepreneurs. The founder behind it all, Kalsoom Lakhani, started the venture to support the next generation of innovators and aid in maturing the startup ecosystem, not just in Pakistan but through the MENA region and Southeast Asia. In 2019, Kalsoom went on to launch i2i Ventures, with Misbah Naqvi. Acting as CEO and General Partner, Kalsoom and her team invests in pre-seed and seed stage startups, providing hands-on support to help take their businesses to the next level.
Recently I had the opportunity to interview Kalsoom and really understand her vision for the business and the i2i ecosystem:
Invest2Innovate’s journey began in 2011 as one of the earliest accelerators in Pakistan. How has the business and mission transformed over the last decade?
I believe our mission has stayed the same – we aim to foster innovation and unleash the potential of Pakistan’s startup ecosystem (and the region!). We went from running our own flagship accelerator program to scaling our work via programs we ran in other geographies, training other programs like ours throughout Pakistan, MENA and South East Asia. We built a research arm of our work, Insights, which releases data and research on the startup ecosystem, and continue to deepen our work through education of investors, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders.
Today, the Invest2Innovate team- I still sit on the board but my day to day is now focused on i2i Ventures is running the 2.0 version of our work called i2i Ecosystem, which is supported by the Visa Foundation and includes a program called i2iScale, offering ecosystem-building activities, and an investor founder discovery platform that will be launched soon.
Recently i2i Ventures raised $3 million in funding through the IFC and We-Fi. What was that journey like? How do you anticipate this funding will impact your company’s growth and initiatives?
We’ve been investing in Pakistan since 2019, first via a pilot fund and then with our Fund I. We already have 15 companies in our portfolio. The IFC is the last investor in our Fund I, and their $3M investment allows us to close the fundraise for Fund I and finish deploying investment capital. While they are the last LP in the fund, their involvement and partnership is a huge signal for the ecosystem at a time when good news is few and far between. The journey to have them as an investor was definitely a long and arduous process, definitely not for the faint hearted, but we’re really grateful for the team that has championed us there and helped us get over the finish line.
Despite being a holistic fund, i2i Ventures has had a steady focus on searching out and investing in female founders. Has that had a cascading effect on the Pakistani entrepreneurial ecosystem in terms of just how many women get to be in the room?
We don’t just invest in female led companies, but we do take a gender lens approach in our investing, so 30% of our active companies are female founded or co-founded, and close to 50% have a woman in C-Suite or senior management. I’m not sure if our involvement has had an impact on women being in the room, but we’ve had to be more activist in our approach in how we source deals to ensure there’s more gender diversity in our pipeline.
We also support our companies on talent, and part of that includes ensuring gender diversity and inclusive workplace policies. Venture capital is a very specific asset class, and finding female-led companies that are venture-style businesses is tough – so we at least try to make sure our pipeline is healthy, that we support initiatives that our sister company runs to deepen our pipeline, and we also do our best to encourage inclusion in their hiring.
In an earlier Daftarkhwan Fireside, you mentioned that “the greatest injustice is potential that isn’t unleashed”. How is the i2i Ecosystem Project, in collaboration with the Visa Foundation, looking to unleash the potential in Pakistani startups?
I can’t take credit for the i2i Ecosystem project, as it’s all the hard amazing work of the team at Invest2Innovate, but the initiative does take a holistic approach to ecosystem building and support, placing the founder at the center. It’s really the culmination of our work over the past 13 years, and reflects where the ecosystem is now and what entrepreneurs need.
Commenti