Federal Minister for IT and Telecom Shaza Fatima Khawaja announced a ten million dollar fund under the second phase of the Pakistan Startup Fund, speaking at the Fintech Roundtable 2026 held at Sindh Governor House after meeting senior officials of the State Bank of Pakistan and the Sindh government to discuss measures to strengthen the country’s startup ecosystem and accelerate digitalisation of the national economy.
Khawaja said the government is working to increase funding available to startups under the Pakistan Startup Fund to between twenty five and fifty million dollars over the next few years by bringing global financial institutions on board, including the World Bank, IFC, and the Asian Development Bank. She said conversations with the World Bank are almost finalised, with IFC pitching in and discussions with ADB also underway, with the plan to anchor a larger fund, structure it as a first class guarantee for international investors, and hand it over to an international fund manager through a formal Request for Proposal process.
The minister noted that access to capital has remained a major challenge for Pakistani startups in recent years, particularly following the global funding slowdown in 2021, which severely constrained financing options. She said phase one deployment of the Pakistan Startup Fund has already started, with the second phase now anchored by this ten million dollar commitment as a foundation for the larger fund being assembled.
Khawaja tied the startup funding announcement to a broader digitalisation agenda, noting that the government has fully digitalised government to government payments among federal ministries and departments, reflecting a larger movement toward a cashless economy. She said the government is targeting an increase in the size of the formal economy through digitalisation, noting that formalising twenty five percent of Pakistan’s informal economy could add approximately one hundred billion dollars to national GDP, given that Pakistan’s formal economy currently stands at four hundred billion dollars, with conservative estimates suggesting a similar amount exists informally and undocumented.
Discussing the digitalisation of Benazir Income Support Programme payments, Khawaja said around eight hundred twenty five thousand women have created digital wallets after the government distributed ten million free SIMs, with transactions through these wallets now reaching into the trillions of rupees. She said beneficiaries have moved beyond simply receiving payments digitally to using the wallets for utility payments, rent, children’s expenses, and other transactions, reflecting broader adoption of digital financial tools among a population that previously had limited access to formal banking services.
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