Sixteen startups have graduated from I-Incubate, the incubation programme run by IBA CEDIR, after pitching at the Demo Day for Cohort 2. Founders took the stage to present what they had spent 14 months building, turning early stage ideas into market ready MVPs, and the centre framed the graduation as a beginning rather than an endpoint. A 14 month runway is longer than many short accelerators offer, and it gives teams time to move from concept to a working product that can be shown to real customers and investors.
The pitches were judged by a panel of seven drawn from academia, industry, and venture investing. The judges were Dr. Mohammad Asad Ilyas, Registrar of the Institute of Business Administration, Faisal Jalal, Founder and Chairman of FJ Holdings, Nida Tanzeel, Social Performance Manager at Wafi Energy Pakistan, and Usama Rehman, Director at Frieden Management. They were joined by Muhammad Ali Taufiq, Director of Investment at Gobi Partners Ventures, Asad Abdulla, Executive Director at Genesis Holdings, and Nisar A. Mughal, Head of Product at Swich. IBA CEDIR thanked them for their time, insights, and honest feedback, which is the part of a Demo Day that often matters most to founders, since candid criticism from an investor or an operator can reshape a product roadmap.
The programme drew on a large support network. IBA CEDIR credited 14 trainers and 20 mentors for guiding the cohort, along with its programme partner, the Higher Education Commission, which backed the founders throughout their journey. Pairing structured training with one on one mentoring is the usual formula for incubation, with trainers building core skills such as finance, marketing, and product thinking, while mentors help individual founders apply them to their own ventures. HEC’s role as partner also reflects a wider push to turn university based entrepreneurship centres into sources of new companies.
The graduation comes as IBA CEDIR prepares for a busy stretch, including a series of founder sessions and its plans for Global Entrepreneurship Week in November, which will include startup pitching, a demo day, and the I-Bazaar. With Cohort 2 now complete, the centre has a growing group of alumni companies, and its closing message to the graduates was that it cannot wait to see what they build next.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
