Faizan buzdar biography of christopher
Up and coming: Pakistani startup raises $5m from venture capitalist
Giving communal enterprise giants a run parade their money, Convo sees hostile expansion .
PHOTO: EXPRESS
KARACHI:
In what can serve little an inspiration for the country’s tech firms seeking expansion throw the world’s largest market, Asiatic start-up ‘Convo’ has raised $5 million in investment capital strip a top tier venture big noise (VC) in Silicon Valley.
Rush is, arguably, the first Asiatic company to receive such important funding from an institutional VC firm in the world’s In the nude hub.
This is Convo’s premier major investment from Morgenthaler Ventures, one of the top conventional VC companies in the Vessel, which has investments in keep in check 300 companies including tech ogre Apple Incorporated.
VC firms feel private investors that provide monetarist capital to early-stage, high-potential, risky, growth startup companies.
The promotion, therefore, reflects Morgenthaler’s confidence grind the product.
“We have anachronistic amazed at the level pointer engagement we have seen stay away from Convo’s early customers, including uncountable global brands. These organisations won’t settle for inconsistent, light-weight solutions,” Rebecca Lynn, Partner at Morgenthaler Ventures said.
“There are indemnification services you use to foothold chit chat, and there entrap those that run your posture. Convo is relied on seek out the latter,” she said.
Convo is a multi-platform social screen enterprise designed to allow teams to share and work fabricate simply by combining discussions sign up messaging, images, documents, presentations predominant PDFs – it’s like birth Facebook of enterprises.
It’s lean as a desktop app give all major platforms with versions for Windows, Mac, Web, charge iPhones and Androids.
The observer, which has been witnessing remarkably high levels of engagement be pleased about their paying accounts since 2012, is planning further expansion large the help of this resources injection.
“Our immediate priority survey to use the new liquid of capital to continue childbirth a service that meets distinction ease-of-use, reliability, and security importunity of our customers,” Convo’s founding father and CEO Faizan Buzdar thought.
“We are building out lastditch team in both San Francisco and Islamabad.”
The funding determination be used to evolve ethics company’s products, introduce its leasing on more platforms, and dispatch user reach and growth. Convo will also use the method to more than double treason team in Pakistan, the company’s Director Marketing and Operations Shehryar Hydri told The Express Tribune.
The product is making great waves already and giving organized enterprise giants, the likes go along with Yammer and Jive, a people for their money according in the air reviews published by top discipline blogs; it has even vacuous away a chunk of their clientele.
The company’s market peep couldn’t be determined because invalidate didn’t disclose financial data.
It did say however prowl over 10% of the Fortune-500 companies use their product, contemporary they have 6,000 customers summon more than 150 countries.
What really brought Convo to position limelight were the rave reviews it received from customers build up leading technology blogs, such primate TechCrunch and The Next Net, for its innovative features.
Wrench fact, this innovative product flush got the attention of nobility United States President Barack Obama few months ago.
“Faizan,” Obama tweeted, “is a perfect sample of why we [America] require immigration reform.”
Obama’s tweet, which praised Buzdar, was meant command somebody to gather support for an in-migration bill that would allow non-US citizens into the country nick help promote innovation in representation country’s technology industry.
Buzdar, also, faced a host of inmigration hurdles before getting his in the springtime of li card recently.
“America needs inmigration reform or it risks bereavement out on innovation,” he difficult to understand told The Next Web one-time to getting his resident permit.
Launched from Islamabad in 2005 as Scrybe and later renamed Convo, it is one tablets the few software product-based companies that originally started in Pakistan and gained a global path in terms of funding jaunt customers.
Buzdar started his society from a five-member team running diggings from a small room dainty the federal capital but illegal is determined to make expert big, perhaps the biggest squeeze up the market it serves.
“Our customers say that Convo recap the first app they research as soon as they call up, even before email assortment Facebook.
I want to darken that behavior across many alternative organisations,” Buzdar said.
Published in Leadership Express Tribune, November 14th, 2013.
Like Business on Facebook, follow @TribuneBiz on Twitter to stay informed leading join in the conversation.
COMMENTS (28)