Mangobaaz

Mangobaaz is a digital media company targeting Pakistani millennials with information and entertainment content. Founded in 2014 by childhood friends Ali Ahsan and Ali Gul, the platform was born out of their experience working for tech startups in Silicon Valley. Both founders felt a desire to create a greater impact and address a gap in the Pakistani media landscape, which they believed underserved the youth demographic—a significant portion of the country's population. They left their jobs in the U.S. and returned to Pakistan, officially launching Mangobaaz as a registered company in September 2015 after an initial experimental phase showed promising audience traction.

The company operates as an online platform that creates and curates shareable content, including articles and videos, designed to resonate with a young, modern audience. Its content strategy focuses on moving beyond mainstream news and politics to tell a different, more human-oriented story about Pakistan. The business model is centered on native advertising, where promotional content is integrated seamlessly with the platform's editorial style. This approach has attracted major brands such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestlé, and Uber as clients. Revenue is generated primarily through these sponsored content partnerships and video productions, with some use of banner ads for data collection. In December 2016, Mangobaaz secured $115,000 in seed funding from Fatima Ventures, which validated its business model and provided capital to scale video operations and diversify its services.

Co-founder Ali Gul's background includes a degree in Entrepreneurship and Marketing from Babson College, which equipped him with the foundational knowledge to identify and pursue this market opportunity. The founders' shared vision was to build a platform that felt relatable to young Pakistanis who were disconnected from traditional media. Supported by the PlanX technology incubator, Mangobaaz grew its user base to over one million monthly visitors within its first year. The company's key performance indicators include traffic growth, video consumption, and revenue growth, with a strong emphasis on expanding its video content to reach a broader, multilingual audience.

Keywords: digital media, content platform, native advertising, Pakistani millennials, youth audience, video content, sponsored content, social entertainment, media startup, online publishing