Founded by a Pakistani-American, Afiniti, one of the world’s leading companies in the field of applied artificial intelligence, is on the verge of going public with a $2 billion valuation.
Meet Zia Chishti – Founder and CEO of Afiniti
Zia Chishti, the current Chairman of the Board and CEO of Afiniti, founded the company back in 2009. Although he was born in the United States, Zia spent most of his young life in Pakistan. He returned to the United States for a Bachelors degree in Economics and Computer Science from Columbia University and also holds an MBA from Stanford University.
An exceptionally successful businessman, Zia has made his mark on several other companies as well before founding Afiniti. Before Afiniti, he founded Align Technology, a medical device technology company, in 1997.
As the Chairman and CEO at Align, he led the startup to over a $1 billion valuation. The company is also a major source of employment for Pakistanis and employed over 700 Pakistanis at the company’s offices in Lahore, Pakistan, during Chishti’s tenure.
Afiniti IPO
Afiniti works on artificial intelligence programs to pair callers and agents based on their behavior. They use big data analytics to analyze customer data from third parties and internal client data to provide a detailed view of individual customers and agents.
With a total of 150 programs around the globe, the company analyzes 400,000 calls on average per day. Some of their biggest clients include Vodafone, Virgin Media, T-Mobile US Inc., and Sprint.
Bloomberg reports that the company is currently considering an initial public offering (IPO). People at Afiniti reportedly believe that an IPO will help them raise funds, allowing them to further boost their growth.
The company has potential to have one of the largest enterprise software IPOs in recent years.
Sources, who asked to remain anonymous, have revealed that Afiniti could be ready to sell shares to the public as soon as this year. For now, they are deliberating over selling 20 to 30 percent of shares on a $2 billion valuation.
Just a few days ago, we covered a story about Tariq Farid— the owner and CEO of Edible Arrangements which is worth over half a billion dollars today. A serial entrepreneur, Zia is another successful business from Pakistan proving his mettle in the business world.
Source— Bloomberg
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