Bookme digitised Pakistan's bus seats and now says Saudi Arabia will add $20 million a year
The Lahore ticketing startup has raised about $10 million and has published no revenue figure. Its Saudi targets, set against its own earlier numbers, leave $11 million of the $20 million unnamed and a user goal that does not add up.
Bookme sells bus seats, cinema seats, flights and cricket tickets from Lahore, and says 15 million people have registered with it. It has raised about $10 million and has published no revenue figure for any year. What it has published, mostly through founder Faizan Aslam, is a set of targets for Saudi Arabia, where it expects about $20 million in additional annual revenue. Set against each other and against the company's own earlier numbers, those targets leave gaps.
A services firm that lost its client
Aslam is a software engineer who studied at International Islamic University in Islamabad. He ran a software services company that grew from six people to more than 50, with offices in Islamabad and Sahiwal. In 2013 one of its biggest clients went bankrupt and left the team short of work. He closed the business to focus on Bookme, he told MENAbytes in February 2020, and moved seven former team members to Lahore. The idea came from two frustrations: he could not get cinema seats on a trip to Lahore, and as a student he struggled to find bus seats from Sahiwal to Islamabad.
Bus operators first
The first product was online ticketing for intercity buses and cinemas. Aslam said Bookme won over bus operators by giving them free software that put their seats, routes and fares online. By 2021 bus ticketing was still the largest segment by customers and revenue, and the company earned a commission from operators on each ticket sold. Its partners then included Daewoo Express, Skyways and QConnect.
Distribution was the second lever. In 2020 Aslam said 14 banks and mobile wallets sold Bookme inventory through its API, and that margins were split 50/50 with those partners. If that split applies to every partner sale, Bookme keeps half of the margin on each ticket sold inside a bank or wallet app. That buys reach at the cost of margin, which helps explain why he said cutting marketing spend would make the company easily profitable but that he preferred to spend and gain share. He also said he was "not a big fan of companies that have hundreds of employees" and wanted a team of 15 to 20.
Cricket, a Series A and a long list of plans
In February 2021 the Pakistan Cricket Board named Bookme ticketing partner for the sixth Pakistan Super League, a contract it won over TCS and Leopards Courier. Tickets were sold online only, each with a QR code, and capacity under pandemic rules was about 7,500 spectators a match day at the National Stadium and about 5,500 at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, 20 percent of seating at both. Bookme held exclusive digital ticketing rights for cricket matches in Pakistan until 2023.
In December 2021 it announced a $7.5 million Series A, co led by Zayn Capital, Hayaat Global and its seed investor, Lakson Investments Venture Capital, with BY Ventures, Jabbar Internet Group, Millville Opportunities and Mentor's Fund taking part. Faisal Aftab of Zayn Capital said the team was "capable of building a Unicorn". The company's plans then were to carry cargo on partner buses, share data on 6 million customers with a telecom operator so it could offer microloans and buy now pay later, and enter Myanmar, which it had considered early and dropped as too costly. Bookme then had more than 500,000 Google Play downloads, against more than 100,000 each for EasyTickets and Sastaticket. Revenue, bookings and profit were not disclosed.
Myanmar, cargo and lending have not featured in the company's announcements since. Saudi Arabia has. Bookme's site now sells flights, buses, hotels, car rentals, events, insurance, visas, tours and Umrah packages.
The Saudi sums
Bookme entered Saudi Arabia in 2024 through Mrsool, a delivery app, and the Saudi tourism authority, and signed flyadeal, a low cost airline, in early 2025. Aslam said in July 2025 that the Mrsool contract was worth about $5 million a year and the flyadeal partnership about $4 million, and that he expected about $20 million in additional annual revenue from the kingdom. The two named deals add to $9 million. That leaves $11 million, or 55 percent of the target, tied to nothing named. He said three contracts had been signed in all, two of them with banks that were awaiting approval from the Saudi Central Bank, and that Bookme planned another funding round.
On 4 September 2025 Bookme signed in Riyadh as ticketing technology provider for Resal, a Saudi rewards platform, so that members can spend points on flights, hotels and events. Aslam said Bookme had more than 450,000 registered users in Saudi Arabia and that Resal had a customer base of more than 2.5 million. Bringing in even 10 percent of it, he said, would take Bookme's Saudi base to more than double "this year", touching one million.
The arithmetic does not support that. Ten percent of 2.5 million is 250,000. Added to 450,000 that makes 700,000, which is 1.6 times the base and 300,000 short of one million. Doubling 450,000 needs 450,000 more users from Resal, or 18 percent of its customers. At one million users the $20 million target means $20 of revenue per user a year, and at 700,000 users it means about $29. The goal was set for 2025, and the last Saudi count the company gave is the 450,000 of September 2025.
Growth claims against growth
In February 2020 Aslam gave 4.5 million registered users and growth of 23 percent month on month over the past year. Compounded for 12 months, 23 percent a month is a twelvefold rise. Bookme reported more than 15 million registered users in September 2025, a rise of about 3.3 times in five and a half years, or roughly 24 percent a year compounded. The company also told Arab News in July 2025 that it was growing about 130 percent year on year. Registered users have not grown that fast, so the figure more likely refers to revenue or bookings, and Bookme has not said which. It also claimed more than 80 million bookings in over 11 years, or around five bookings for each registered user.
Beyond Saudi Arabia the company says it is pursuing deals in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar through its Saudi office, and plans to enter Africa, starting with South Africa and Tanzania.
Umrah visas, the newest bet
The latest Saudi step is a product and not a number. In April 2026 Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Hajj and Umrah recognised Bookme as a strategic partner for instant Umrah visa issuance, at the opening of the Umrah and Ziyarah Forum in Madinah. Pakistani pilgrims can get a visa through Bookme's website, apps and partner banking and fintech apps, in a process linked in real time to Saudi government visa systems, and the service issued visas during the last ten days of Ramadan 2026.
“This partnership will fundamentally change how Pakistani pilgrims access Umrah.”
No visa counts or revenue have been published, so the partnership cannot yet be set against the $20 million target.
What decides it
Bookme gains from being a toll collector on trips Pakistanis already take, and Saudi Arabia is the market it has chosen to push. Aslam described the Mrsool deal as the first "drop of the rain". Fares 6 to 7 percent below the market average, which the company claims, cost margin while it builds share, and half of the margin on partner sales is already given away. The outcome rests on whether the unnamed $11 million appears as signed contracts, whether the Saudi Central Bank approves the bank deals, and whether Umrah visa volume turns into published revenue. The one million Saudi user goal was for 2025, and the last count the company gave is 450,000.
