How a Tiny Startup Thinks It Can Save Pakistan’s Wallets (Spoiler: It Almost Does)

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In the dusty streets of Pakistan, where the rickshaw echoes and the markets hum like an old engine, a new hope has arrived, cloaked in digital garb. Andreessen Horowitz, that Silicon Valley sage with more money than sense sometimes, has thrown a handful of it at a bright-eyed startup called ZAR. Their mission? To import the kind of dollars that only the elite can afford, into the hands of the everyday man and woman-through local shops that already know their faces and their habits.

They’ve raised nearly twenty million dollars-no small feat-because apparently, everyone’s got a little ambition, and maybe a lot of caffeine. This money comes from big names like Dragonfly Capital and Coinbase Ventures, who seem eager to gamble on a future where cash is less king and digital coins are the new sheriff in town. Yes, the same coins that can be slipped into a mobile wallet while you haggle over the price of a mango.

Picture this: a person walks into their neighborhood corner store, scans a QR code like it’s some secret society handshake, hands over cold cash-the kind that stays under the mattress-and in return, gets digital dollars on their phone. That phone, by the magic of Visa – because why not? – lets them buy breakfast or pay the rent, just like they’d use a credit card in New York, only with more spice and less security.

What does this mean for Pakistan?

Well, for the folks who still think a bank is something only rich people own a key to-hello, most of the population-this is a bridge over their river of cash. Most Pakistanis don’t touch banks much; they trust their local shopkeeper more than a bureaucrat with a ledger. ZAR aims to turn these trusted shops into gateways to the digital age, making it easier to spend, save, or just hold onto money without the risk of it evaporating in a fire or a flood.

And just as Pakistan is trying to get a handle on that wild crypto beast-creating agencies, writing rules that sound like they come from a high school economics class-ZAR’s pilot project might just dance between the lines of regulation and rebellion. If it works, they want to spread their digital wings across Africa, maybe in 2026, if the gods of commerce smile kindly upon them.

Founded by Sebastian Scholl and Brandon Timinsky, who sold a previous wallet startup for a pretty penny, ZAR is betting on the idea that if people can just tap, scan, and spend, they might forget about the old days of dusty cash and paper receipts. Or so they hope, because in the end, everyone just wants to buy bread without too much fuss-and maybe, just maybe, show off their new digital wallet to friends.

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2025-10-28 13:57