One of Pakistan’s leading startups, Airlift, has stated that it will cease operations there, blaming the “global crisis and the current dip in capital markets” for the decision.
A few months ago, the q-commerce firm already reduced the number of cities where it operated.
Airlift — one of Pakistan’s top startups — has announced to shut its operation in the country citing “global recession and the recent downturn in capital markets” as the reasons behind its closure.
The q-commerce startup had already curtailed its operations in several cities a few months ago.
“While the global recession and recent downturn in capital markets have affected economic activity across the board, it has had a devastating impact on Airlift and rendered its shut-down inevitable,” the company said in a statement, announcing that on July 12th, Airlift’s operations will shut down permanently.
The company termed the development an “extremely taxing decision” that impacts a large set of stakeholders and an emerging technology ecosystem.
According to the statement, Airlift has emerged as one of the most adaptable and resilient businesses to emerge from emerging nations in recent years. The business successfully navigated the COVID-19 crisis by switching to q-commerce and gaining traction in a new industry.
The business claimed to have “restructured” its operations in reaction to the recession by implementing three codes, including I an immediate personnel reduction, (ii) ceasing activities in all expansion markets, and (iii) changing platform configurations to increase monetization (i.e. introduction of higher prices and delivery fee).
“With the above adaptations, Airlift was able to achieve order-level profitability, maintain reasonable scale, and reduce financial burn by 66%. As of July, 2022, Airlift was about three months away from operating profitability (i.e. positive cash flow from operations), and about 6-9 months from company-level profitability (i.e. Free Cash Flow),” it added.
