AshreiTech makes first Pakistan bet, backing cybersecurity firm Di8it

What's the deal? US private equity firm AshreiTech has made a strategic investment in Digit Labs (Di8itDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →), a Pakistani cybersecurity company founded in 2015. The transaction, a private placement, marks AshreiTech's first investment in Pakistan. Terms were not disclosed.

What does Di8it do? The company provides offensive, defensive, advisory, and managed security services to banks, government institutions, telecom operators, and enterprises in regulated sectors. Its focus includes agentic SOC and agentic MXDR, pairing human-governed AI agents with expert analysts.

Why now? The deal lands as Pakistani organisations accelerate digital transformation and face rising cyber threats. Demand for enterprise security is climbing across banking, government, and telecom.

What's the endgame? The investment gives Di8it capital, strategic backing, and market access to grow across Pakistan and beyond, while AshreiTech adds a cybersecurity capability to its technology portfolio.

"Pakistan's digital economy is growing fast, and so is the need for world-class cyber defense," said Rahim Iqbal, general partner at AshreiTech. "Digit Labs has the engineering depth and client trust to lead that market, and we're investing to help them scale."

"AshreiTech's backing is a strong endorsement of what our team has built since 2015," said Abbas Rajani, chief executive officer of Digit Labs.

The signal: The deal reflects growing investor appetite for cybersecurity in emerging markets, as US firms look beyond established American markets toward South Asia's fast-growing technology economies.

Read more: startuppakistan.com.pk

Image credit: Idaho National Laboratory