Indus Valley Capital

Pakistan’s wedding market is huge, emotional, and still largely offline. Shadiyana is changing that with 30,000+ weddings planned already. Every year, there are an estimated 2 million weddings in Pakistan. The spend across venues, catering, decor, photography, fashion, jewelry, travel and more is enormous, estimated to be over $5 Billion annually. But despite the size and cultural importance of the category, wedding planning remains deeply fragmented and mostly offline. Families still rely on scattered vendor discovery, word-of-mouth recommendations, endless follow-ups, opaque pricing, and a lot of stress during what should be one of life’s most meaningful moments. That is the opportunity Shadiyana is going after and why Indus Valley Capital invested. Izzah Zaman, Neelam Shoaib, and the Shadiyana team are building the trusted platform for wedding planning in Pakistan. They are connecting families with well-reviewed venues and vendors, bringing more transparency to the process, and making wedding planning simpler, more organized, and far less stressful. Most importantly, they have built with real care for the customer. The product reflects a deep understanding of how families actually plan weddings, and customers love the experience. If you have a wedding coming up in the family, or know someone who does, check out Shadiyana.pk

Uplift AI welcome to the IVC fam!

Welcome Shadiyana to the Indus Valley Capital fam! Excited to be a part of your journey.

Thrilled about Indus Valley Capital achieving its first exit as Jams joins OpenAI. Jams creates video experiences that stay authentic while leveraging the best of generative AI. Congrats and kudos to Asad Awan and Hamza Aftab, exceptional founders we've been fortunate to partner with since participating in their seed round led by a16z in 2022. Asad and Hamza have both previously worked at Meta, building creator and monetization products. I am excited to see what they create next as part of OpenAI, a generational company. In Fund II, we began experimenting with small participating checks in Pakistani founders building globally, especially those based in the U.S., while continuing to focus primarily on startups building for the Pakistani market. Jams was our first investment under this model, and this exit validates our ability to spot exceptional Pakistani founders anywhere and earn allocations in competitive rounds. We plan to double down on this model.

We are grateful to The Indus Valley Capital for serving as the Title Sponsor of the Annual Forum 2025. Their invaluable support played a key role in advancing our mission to foster community innovation, build meaningful connections, and create opportunities for founders, builders, and visionaries. Thank you for being a trusted partner in building what truly matters. #OpenSVForum2025 #TitleSponsor #CommunityInnovation #BuildingWhatMatters #Entrepreneurship #TechEcosystem #ThankYouIVC

Unicorns started by Pakistani-origin founders are on the rise. And the growth is accelerating. It used to happen once a decade. In just the last 5 years (2021-2025), 10 companies started by Pakistani-origin founders have hit the billion-dollar valuation / market cap. And now, we even have two deca-corns started by Pakistani founders - Applied Intuition and Cursor / Anysphere. In my keynote at the OPEN Silicon Valley annual forum, I called this the decade of the Pakistani founder. Here’s why this acceleration is happening: 🛂 Visa to Venture Pipeline It takes almost a decade for a Pakistani to go through student visa, work visa, green card and citizenship. Most prefer to work for Big Tech until they are done with this process. Many Pakistanis went to the US in late 90s and 2000s. Now they are building and scaling startups. 🇵🇰 Pakistan Leverage Many Pakistani founders leverage tech talent back home which has been growing steadily. Securiti and Motive are good examples of this. The lower cost gives them a structural advantage over the competitors. 🖇️ Network Effects Each successful Pakistani origin founder inspires many others to take that path. There is now a growing number of Pakistani origin VCs too. The access to capital, mentoring and talent multiplies as the network grows. The coming decade will see even more global category-defining companies built by Pakistani founders. We're here for it.