ARY Digital Network has signed a term sheet to acquire a 25 percent stake in Create, a Pakistan-built financial platform designed for the creative economy, bringing together one of Pakistan’s largest entertainment networks and a technology platform built specifically to give creative businesses and professionals access to capital. The deal was signed in Islamabad, and pairs ARY’s decades-long media and production infrastructure with a fintech-style workflow tool built around a segment of Pakistan’s economy that has historically operated with inconsistent credit practices and limited access to structured financing.
Create connects creative work, invoicing, payments, and financing within a single workflow, verifying approved work and building a transaction history around it that allows eligible businesses and professionals to access financing through its licensed financing partners. The platform is built specifically for creators, freelancers, and creative businesses, an intentional attempt to give the creative economy the kind of financial infrastructure that other sectors have long taken for granted, where formal credit histories and verified income records remain difficult to establish for freelance and project-based creative work.
Under the partnership, ARY’s production houses and the talent working with them will gain direct access to Create’s funding, with the platform also opening to production houses across Pakistan more broadly, as well as influencers, digital content creators, and advertising agencies, with the stated aim of building a shared financial ecosystem for the wider industry over time. Salman Iqbal, chief executive officer of ARY Group, described the move as a continuation of ARY’s two-decade effort to give Pakistan’s artists and creators a stage, arguing that the creative community has not received the financial support and recognition other industries enjoy, and framing the Create partnership as a long-term investment in the future of Pakistan’s creative economy.
Momina Sibtain, founder of Create, said she experienced the workflow and payment challenges the platform addresses firsthand as a creator herself, describing the ARY partnership as validation of both the underlying problem and the need for a structured solution, while giving Create a tangible way to begin addressing it at scale. Fatin Gondal, founding investor at Create, connected the deal to a broader thesis around making capital access simpler for underserved businesses, describing the extension into the creator and entertainment industry as a natural next step. Mohammad Jerjees Seja, chief executive officer of ARY Digital Network, framed the partnership around strengthening the ecosystem around artists and creators more broadly, working through Create to give production houses, talent, influencers, and creators the financial support needed to grow their work and build better lives.
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