Epic Angels invests in Pakistan payments startup Neem

Epic Angels, the world’s largest all-female investment collective, has invested in Pakistan-based payments platform Neem as part of the company’s pre-Series A funding round, the firm said on Thursday.

The investment round also includes participation from DNI Group, Hi2 Global and AKD, along with existing seed investors SparkLabs Ventures, Outrun Ventures, Arif Habib and MyAsiaVC. Strategic angel investors from Stripe, PayNet, Aspire and other global fintech and payments firms also joined the round.

Neem said the funds will be used to scale its technology infrastructure, strengthen cybersecurity and data protection, expand enterprise partnerships and accelerate onboarding across sectors including logistics, insurance, healthcare, e-commerce and agriculture.

Pakistan’s payments ecosystem remains heavily cash-based and fragmented. Despite a population of more than 250 million — around 60% of whom are under the age of 30 — about 71% of the total value of transactions still flows through over-the-counter cash and traditional channels, according to the company.

Businesses often rely on multiple payment providers to collect revenue, pay vendors and manage payroll, leading to operational inefficiencies, manual reconciliation and limited real-time financial visibility, particularly for enterprises and small and medium-sized firms.

Neem aims to address these challenges by offering a full-stack payments platform that enables collections, disbursements and branded digital wallets through a single application programming interface, mirroring payment infrastructure used in more developed markets.

The company was founded by Vladimira Briestenska, Nadeem Shaikh and Naeem Zamindar, a team with experience across fintech, banking and financial regulation. Neem commercially launched its core products in January 2025.

Since then, the platform has grown transaction volumes by more than 30% month-on-month and now serves more than 50 business-to-business clients across logistics, insurance, healthcare, e-commerce and agriculture, the company said.

Maaike Doyer, founding and managing partner at Epic Angels, said large global players such as Stripe and Adyen together control less than 10% of the global payments market and remain focused on established economies.

“That leaves a significant opportunity for local platforms like Neem,” Doyer said. “With large enterprises across logistics, insurance and agriculture already signed, Neem is well positioned to become the financial operating system powering Pakistan’s digital economy.”