Risk-averse capital drives hybrid deals

Pakistan's startup ecosystem, once a headline-grabbing post-Covid-19 success story that attracted aggressive venture capital chasing growth and buzzworthy "disruption," is now entering a more cautious and structurally different phase. With investors increasingly prioritising risk-adjusted returns and shifting capital towards safer assets such as gold, the funding landscape is undergoing a transformation marked by a decisive move away from speculative equity rounds towards hybrid financing structures that now dominate capital flows. The shift was highlighted during Invest2Innovate (i2i)'s "Ecosystem Signals 2026" event, where industry leaders discussed the findings of Pakistan's Capital Landscape Brief 2024-2025 and outlined emerging investment trends shaping the ecosystem.