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Colabs Nabs $3 Million in Seed Funding to Launch Back-office SaaS Solution

 

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Colabs Nabs $3 Million in Seed Funding to Launch Back-office SaaS Solution

In 2019, Omar Shah and Ali Shah (twin brothers), saw an opportunity to address the flexible workspace needs of Pakistan based startup ecosystem, that is currently on fire. Omar with extensive background in private equity and Ali at the helm of the family's well established real estate business, combined their skills to develop flexible collaboration workplaces for startups. 

The idea of flexible workspaces is a proven business model and well established. The poster child for this business strategy is probably WeWork. Aside from their CEO Adam Neumann, getting the boot in recent past, WeWork got a hefty investment from the SoftBanks' Vision fund - in tune of around $17 Billion. Post much turbulence, WeWork finally went public through SPAC.

So for Colabs there is precedence of success. The pandemic has also bolstered their chance of success, as physical assets became overhead due to mounting operating expenses overhead. Colabs, like other flexible workspace providers also hosts events, geared towards networking, learning, sharing and even meeting potential investors.

The story for Colabs though is not just about flexible workspaces, rather expanding their capabilities. The hot startup market has amplified the need to manage back-office logistics. To address this demand, Colabs has developed and is rolling out a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, which can be utilized for company registration, resource sourcing and management, payroll and legal/tax compliance. 

Investors see Colabs on a growth trajectory path with a ripe business landscape, so Colabs has successfully secured $3 million in seed funding from several investors. According to Omar, “We realized that people setting up operations in Pakistan need other services; they need help to set up companies, process payrolls and to ensure tax compliance,” concluding with, “That is why we introduced our business solutions.”

Colabs intends to use this capital injection to hire additional talent, to further strengthen its SaaS product and intents to land at least 600 paying customers over the next 12 month horizon. Colabs also envisions to expand nation wide in Pakistan over the next 5 years, with a capacity to host 100,000 people, up from 1,200 people spanning 100 companies.

Barring the fiascos from WeWork, Collab seems to be headed down the right path, for now.

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