Pakistani supply chain startup Driftly is selected for Cohort 13 of Accelerating Asia Ventures, earning a spot in one of the region’s competitive startup accelerator programs. This comes after the startup beat a record pool of more than 700 applications.
C13 has received an impressive 724 applications to be exact, marking the largest pool we’ve ever assessed for a single cohort. These applications come from 20 different countries and showcase a fantastic variety of sectors, stages, and founder backgrounds. After five rounds of evaluation, we’re on the verge of announcing a select group of candidates. But before we dive into that, let’s take a moment to share the fascinating stories of those who applied.
Driftly targets a persistent and expensive inefficiency in consumer goods distribution across South Asia. Most distributors still manage orders, routes, and replenishment decisions through spreadsheets, WhatsApp groups, and static ERP systems.
The startup’s platform places a large language model-managed decision layer over the entire distribution chain, converting what was previously guesswork and gut-feel into data-driven decisions. The company says this approach saves distributors up to 20% of net profit that would otherwise be lost to poor planning and reactive operations.
The founder brings direct domain experience to the problem. Before launching Driftly, he served as Head of Supply Chain at Airlift, the Pakistani rapid commerce startup that scaled aggressively before shutting down in 2022. During his time at Airlift, he launched over 80 warehouses and worked directly with more than 450 manufacturers, giving him firsthand exposure to the inefficiencies Driftly is now solving.
The platform already has a flagship customer live on the system, with that business reporting double-digit growth in its sales footprint and over 20% improvement in margin since deployment.
In a detail that has drawn attention on social media, Driftly was a taxi service, and the founder served as its first driver. The pivot to supply chain software reflects both the founder’s professional background and a sharper reading of where the real problem in Pakistan’s distribution economy actually sits.
Driftly joins four other startups in Cohort 13 including Meed, DIGIBOX, Meza AI, and Govaly, for a 100-day program run by the Singapore-based accelerator.
