funl Karachi is back, and the Community Delivered
Karachi’s startup events circuit isn’t short of options. But funl has always operated differently. We are smaller by design and built on the conviction that the quality of connections matters more than the size of the crowd. The latest edition, powered by Premier Payfast in partnership with Cloudways by DigitalOcean, made that case again.
The evening drew a strong cross-section of founders, investors, technologists, and academics. RSVP-only, no walk-ins, guests required to register individually, which created a room where people are there because they belong, not because they saw a poster.
The Speed Showcase
4 startups. Tight slots. Real products. Here’s what each one brought:
12Commerce – WhatsApp as a Commerce Channel
Presented by Bilal Raza, CEO of 12Monday Technologies, 12Commerce makes a sharp observation about the Pakistani market: 5 million-plus SMEs exist in the country, fewer than 5% have an online store, and 180 million Pakistanis are already transacting on WhatsApp every day, with no real infrastructure behind it. Sellers are writing orders in notebooks, managing screenshots, running Excel sheets. Real businesses, real revenue, zero systems.
12Commerce is the fix. Pakistan’s first platform to unify website, WhatsApp, and social media orders into a single dashboard. Stores go live in 12 minutes, no code required, with Meta Commerce sync pulling in Facebook and Instagram orders automatically. The platform already has 150+ active stores and has generated 3,000+ orders, with local payment gateway integration and a Shopify/WooCommerce importer for sellers migrating over.
The Weirdest – Special FX and Colour That Stands Out
The Weirdest brought something genuinely different to a typically tech-heavy lineup, a special FX makeup brand and a distinctive coloured lipstick line. Consumer and beauty brands rarely get stage time at founder-facing events, but Zaina Ayub, the founder and the product stood on its own and the reception in the room reflected that.
ConnectHear – SILA and AI-Powered Accessibility
ConnectHear introduced SILA, their latest product combining real-time interpretation with AI-powered alerts. The startup is building at the intersection of accessibility and artificial intelligence, a space that’s under-resourced and over-needed in Pakistan’s tech ecosystem.
Indolj – Shopify for Restaurants, Born From a Crisis
Indolj’s story starts in 2020. COVID hit, dine-in shut down, and when lockdowns softened, delivery aggregators moved in fast, increasing commissions, locking restaurants out of their own customer relationships, and controlling visibility on their platforms. Restaurants had no independent digital infrastructure, and most owners didn’t have the technical knowledge to build it.
Indolj launched to fill that gap. The pitch is direct: the Shopify for restaurants in Pakistan. A full digital ecosystem, online ordering websites, mobile apps, rider management, remarketing tools, AI-based menu enhancement, POS integration, and intelligence dashboards — all launchable for a new restaurant in 72 hours.
The numbers today: 3,000+ active restaurant locations across Pakistan, 30,000 orders processed daily, and cost savings of 30–40% compared to aggregator commissions. The economic argument is straightforward — every percentage point of commission saved directly improves long-term profitability for restaurants operating on thin margins.
Qaflah 0 The Operating System for Founders
Before the Speed Showcase kicked off, cofounder Faizan took the floor during the welcome address to introduce Qaflah to the room – and it set the tone for the entire evening.
Qaflah is built around a simple but ambitious premise: founders need more than a community platform. They need infrastructure. The product brings together AI-powered startup analysis, giving founders real intelligence on their own ventures, their market, and their competition, with a cofounder matching layer that goes beyond LinkedIn serendipity, and a community operating layer designed around how early-stage builders actually spend their time.
The reception was immediate. A room full of founders, investors, and operators, exactly the audience Qaflah is built for, responded with the kind of energy that doesn’t need a post-event survey to measure. Questions followed. Conversations continued well into the networking session.
For a product built in Karachi, for founders across MENAAP and beyond, the funl stage was a fitting first public moment. The ecosystem showed up for it.
Premier Payfast – Pakistan’s Digital Payments Infrastructure
The event’s lead sponsor also took the stage, and they had plenty to say. Premier Payfast is part of the Premier Systems Group (the same holding company behind Audi distribution in Pakistan), and became Pakistan’s first licensed PSO/PSP back in 2021. Since then: first to partner with Visa Cybersource and Mastercard in 2022, Raast P2M enabled in 2024, and in 2025 the first payment gateway in Pakistan to partner with Google Pay.
Their headline at funl: Pakistan’s first Merchant Service Provider for Raast P2M payments — allowing businesses to receive payments directly into bank accounts through Pakistan’s national payment infrastructure at a fraction of traditional card processing costs. The product stack covers online checkout, PayPOS, payment links, static and dynamic QR codes, BNPL via JazzCash, and a 1-click checkout with tokenization. Banking and wallet partners span virtually the entire Pakistani financial ecosystem.
Multiple award wins, Best Payment Gateway at the Global Digital Awards in both 2024 and 2025 — reflect a company that’s been quietly building serious infrastructure while the broader fintech narrative gets louder.
Beyond the Pitches
Two activations added texture to the networking stretch of the evening. Scents N Stories set up what may be Karachi’s most novel retail installation, a perfume vending machine that drew crowds and conversations in equal measure. ColdBros ran cold brew tastings, keeping the energy going through the networking session that, by most accounts, ran well past its intended end.
This is what community-first startup building looks like in Karachi. See you at the next one.
