BEIJING, Nov 14 (INP): Fatima Gobi Ventures, a joint venture between Pakistani venture capital firm Fatima Ventures and Shanghai-headquartered VC Gobi Partners, expects to close its first fund of $20 million by the end of November, reports Gwadar Pro Net, quoting official sources. The Pakistan-focused joint venture was first announced at the Pakistan-Malaysia Business and Investment Roundtable in March this year, which was attended by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Mahathir bin Mohammad. Fatima Gobi Ventures will typically write its first cheque for in the region of $100,000-$200,000, with room to deploy up to $2 million. It aims to invest in about 15 to 20 startups across the e-commerce, fintech and mobility sectors. It’s been an eventful past few months in Pakistan’s startup space. At the end of 2018, Sarmaya car (a venture capital fund ) announced their intent to invest somewhere between $100,000 to $2 million in Pakistani tech-enabled startups, and a $30 million cumulative fund to support local startups in the country. As noted by many industry experts, the rise in venture capital activity in Pakistan is a positive trend, particularly because 2018 showed considerable growth as compared to the year before. The2017 KPMG Global Analysis of Venture Funding Reportshowed an investment of $23.1 million by venture capital firms in Pakistan. Comparatively, this year there were accounts of around $343 million in investments in startups. On the other hand, in a joint report “Pakistan Startup Ecosystem Report 2019 “by World Bank (WB) there are issues , such as opening a bank account, receiving credit, paying taxes, enforcing contracts, etc. which are still identified as areas that need to be refined. There is a lack of an efficient taxation process to save time and resources of entrepreneurs and investors. Additionally, startups are currently taxed on revenue rather than profits which creates a common misconception that startups do not qualify for corporate income tax because they are not profitable up until a certain point in their lifecycle. There is a major need for the government to not only make the regulatory processes simpler but to also focus on creating a better user experience for entrepreneurs; i.e. a one-window solution. The report continued that while Pakistan’s digital startup landscape has grown significantly in the past seven years, the ecosystem has its share of challenges, particularly when it comes to regulations, access to early stage capital, and the gender gap in the entrepreneurship space. Over the past five years, (2015-19), there were a total of 101 deals of Pakistan-based companies, constituting over $165 million, which were raised by 82 companies. While this is positive, Pakistan still has a long way to go compared to its neighbors in South Asia, Based on a score given to the number of venture capital deals per year in 2019. While local venture capital funds are not incentivized to domicile their funds inside Pakistan, foreign investors also need to be provided with further incentives to enter and invest in startups in the country. This, in addition to the stringency and complexity of the regulatory processes, poses a serious challenge to all stakeholders in the ecosystem.