Saad Saeed

Pakistani startup founder and entrepreneur

Compiled from 1 recorded interview. Every statement below is drawn from the passage cited beside it.

Saad Saeed is an entrepreneur and business executive who is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Leila.ai. He previously worked in the fintech sector and co-founded the German grocery delivery startup Flink.

Career

Saeed worked in the financial technology sector before co-founding Flink, an on-demand grocery delivery startup based in Germany. He exited the company in 2022 because he believed that its model of growth was not sustainable. [1]

Driven by an interest in building consumer products that change how people use services, Saeed co-founded Leila.ai and serves as its chief executive officer. He is developing Leila as a conversational platform designed to consolidate travel search and recommendations into a single interface. Drawing inspiration from social commerce developments in China, the platform incorporates short vertical videos from content creators to assist travel planning, provides customizable trip templates from social media creators, and employs a Pakistan-based travel agency to assist users with completing bookings. [1]

Leila has raised approximately seven million dollars in funding from investors including First Minute Capital, M13, United Airlines, and the founders of Booking.com and Skyscanner. The platform has attracted around five million users, who have exchanged approximately 30 million messages and generated around one billion dollars in trips. Through a partnership with the startup Noodle Seed, Leila has also been deployed onto ChatGPT and Anthropic. [1]

Views and commentary

Saeed considers the travel industry to be deceptively complex and notes that travel startups experience the highest failure rate in the startup ecosystem. He argues that competing against major industry monopolies requires a radically different product, pointing out that travel planning centers heavily on budgets, numbers, and distances. Saeed believes early travel chatbots failed because they merely converted standard search boxes into chat interfaces, and that current large language models still lack the capacity to handle highly personalized travel planning. He views the future of travel artificial intelligence as a collaborative assistant modeled after a luxury travel agent that supports existing human agents. [1]

Regarding the broader technology sector, Saeed believes artificial intelligence represents a major opportunity for developing nations through contextualized education in native languages. He does not believe the AI industry is in a bubble comparable to delivery services or electric scooters, identifying compute capacity and oil prices as the only factors likely to burst growth. While noting that keeping AI agents permanently active remains too expensive due to token costs, he envisions future agents anticipating user needs in advance. Saeed has stated that companies such as Anthropic promote fear of job displacement before fundraising rounds, though he maintains that measures like universal basic income will eventually be required to address workforce disruption. [1]

Saeed has also commented on the startup and travel environments in Pakistan. He attributed the collapse of the startup Airlift to gross negligence in financial management, while crediting Crave Mark with restoring foreign investor confidence in Pakistani startup exits. Discussing domestic travel, he noted that traveling throughout Pakistan is difficult for foreigners due to the lack of comprehensive documentation regarding safe and restricted areas. [1]

Personal life

Saeed is from the city of Rahul Pindi. He is a parent to two children, aged five and one. For personal travel, he once used a travel agent to book an itinerary routing from Dubai to Pakistan, and onward to the United States by way of Turkey. [1]

Appearances

DateTitleWhere
2026-06-04 Travel search was engineered to stay broken Beyond the Bubble

Frequently asked questions

Who is Saad Saeed?

Saad Saeed is a technology entrepreneur from Rahul Pindi who co-founded the German grocery delivery company Flink. He currently serves as the co-founder and chief executive officer of the travel platform Leila.ai.[1]

What is Saad Saeed's connection to Leila?

He is the co-founder and CEO of Leila.ai. He is developing Leila, a platform designed to consolidate travel search and recommendations into a single conversational interface. His startup has raised approximately seven million dollars. The founders of Skyscanner and Booking.com invested in his venture. United Airlines invested in his venture.[1]

What is Leila.ai?

Leila.ai is an artificial intelligence travel platform co-founded by Saad Saeed that provides trip planning and booking assistance through a conversational interface. The platform utilizes short creator videos and custom templates, has attracted around five million users, and is deployed onto ChatGPT and Anthropic.[1]

References

  1. Travel search was engineered to stay broken . Beyond the Bubble , 2026-06-04.
Show the source passages (42 statements)
  1. He is from the city of Rahul Pindi. Sad sed from the city of Rahul Pindi all the way to Germany.
  2. He worked in the fintech space. He originally uh was in a the fintech space
  3. He co-founded Flink, a German grocery delivery startup. he co-founded Flink which was a German grocery delivery startup
  4. He exited in 2022. he took his exit in 2022 and decided to travel a little bit
  5. He is the co-founder and CEO of Leila.ai. he is the co-founder and CEO of Leila.ai AI
  6. He is passionate about building consumer products that change how people use things. So for me I get super passionate about building consumer products and also those products that really change the way people are using some things.
  7. He is developing Leila, a platform designed to consolidate travel search and recommendations into a single conversational interface. and that is basically what we are [] tackling with Leila with which is rather [] than trying to send you off in 100 [] different tabs how do we keep you in one [] interface get to know you extremely [] deeply and understand why you are [] traveling
  8. He advocates using short vertical videos from content creators to guide travel decisions. Yeah, for us, I think we are very [] bullish on having these short vertical [] videos from actual content creators [] drive people's decisions cuz travel is [] so visual
  9. His approach to integrating travel booking with social commerce was inspired by developments in China. So our inspiration has also been what we [] saw in China. Um in China, social [] commerce and travel has is is uh rising [] in like crazy.
  10. He has a five-year-old child and a one-year-old child. I I have a 5-year-old and a [] one-year-old.
  11. He booked a trip through a travel agent to travel from Dubai to Pakistan and then to the United States via Turkey. I I got my travel agent to [] book a trip um from Dubai to Pakistan. [] Pakistan to uh the US via Turkey.
  12. Leila employs a travel agency based in Pakistan to assist customers in completing travel bookings. So what we have actually at Leila um is [] a whole travel agency um that we've [] hired um that's also based out of [] Pakistan um that actually facilitates [] and helps people complete their [] bookings.
  13. He believes artificial intelligence can play a significant role in travel by enabling existing travel agents. AI what we are seeing right now which [] can play a massive role in travel is [] enabling the travel agents that are [] already there
  14. He decided to exit Flink because he did not believe it could grow sustainably in the manner it was growing. the reason why I also [] decided to exit from Flink was that I [] couldn't see it sustainably grow [] >> the the way that it was growing
  15. He considered the failure of Airlift to be the result of gross negligence in money management. I think airlift that [] you mentioned I mean I think that was [] just massive gross negligence um of of [] money management more than um startups
  16. He viewed Crave Mark as having helped Pakistan's reputation following the problems at Airlift and encouraged foreign investors to recognize that startups in Pakistan can achieve exits. I think we can be very proud of [] Crave Mark of what they've done for the [] name of Pakistan as well saved it after [] all of the fiasco from airlift and um I [] think has really also encouraged foreign [] investment investors to realize that [] startups in Pakistan can have an exit.
  17. He considers artificial intelligence to be a major opportunity for the developing world by enabling contextualized learning in local languages. this is definitely especially for the [] developing world a massive opportunity [] because for the first time you can learn [] about all of the concepts of Einstein in [] Baloi in Cindi you can have everything [] so contextualized
  18. He believes the only factors that could burst the artificial intelligence bubble are compute capacity and oil prices. the only thing [] that could really blast the bubble of AI [] is the the compute and oil prices.
  19. He believes the artificial intelligence sector will not experience a bubble similar to electric scooters or delivery services. So I think in in this regard it would [] not be like one of the escooter bubbles [] or the delivery bubbles that that that [] happened.
  20. He believes companies like Anthropic engage in fear-mongering about job losses immediately before conducting fundraising rounds. there's definitely a lot of [] fear-mongering that goes on and I think [] you will always see anthropic coming up [] and saying all jobs are going to get [] lost right before they're doing their [] fund raise
  21. He believes that new concepts such as universal basic income are needed to address job displacement caused by artificial intelligence. I think this is where we we do need to come up with new concepts of universal basic income or figuring out how we would be tackling this.
  22. His startup has raised approximately seven million dollars. So we have basically raised around 7 million um
  23. His platform has attracted approximately five million users. So we've gotten around 5 million users coming in
  24. Users on his platform have sent around 30 million messages. that have done around 30 million messages on the platform.
  25. Users have generated trips worth around one billion dollars on his platform. they've generated basically trips on the platform which are worth around a billion dollars.
  26. The founders of Skyscanner and Booking.com invested in his venture. And this time we basically have um the founder of Skyscanner who's invested, the founder of Booking.com.
  27. United Airlines invested in his venture. We have United Airlines um the largest airline in the world who's invested.
  28. First Minute Capital invested in his venture. We've gotten um First Minute Capital which is uh basically run by Brent Hobberman who's the founder of lastminute.com
  29. M13 invested in his venture. also M13 which is based out of San Francisco.
  30. He considers travel to have the highest failure rate among startups. travel has the highest rate of failure for startups.
  31. He considers the travel sector to be deceptively complex. Because it is uh deceptively complex.
  32. He believes competing with major travel industry monopolies requires a radically different product. if you have to go and compete with them, you need to have a radically different product.
  33. His company, Leila, collaborates with travel creators on social media who provide trip templates for users to customize. we work with travel creators who post on social and then are able to say that if you would like to do a trip that is similar to this then you can find it on Leila with a specific link and then people can go take their trip as a template and start customizing it towards themselves.
  34. His platform is integrated into ChatGPT through a partnership with a startup called Noodle Seed. we're also right now on chat GPT and this is where we work basically with a startup called noodle seed that allows any business to come and be on chat GPT within basically a matter of days.
  35. He considers travel planning to be centered around numbers, budgets, and distances. travel is all about numbers and budgets and distances
  36. He believes the initial phase of travel chatbots did not succeed because they only converted traditional search boxes and filters into a chatbot format. the first phase of these travel chatbots have come and and it's not really succeeded none of the the big layers have made a big difference and so on which has just been to convert the existing way that which we do stuff like the search box and filter and try to make it into a chatbot.
  37. He envisions the future of travel AI as a collaborative assistant modeled on a luxury travel agent. the future of that is really where you have a personal travel agent that knows you so well that can basically be acting as that assistant that you know you or if you would be paying a luxury travel agent for
  38. He believes current large language models lack the capability to handle the complexity of highly personalized travel planning. the current LLMs are also not equipped to handle that complexity but that is where we want to be going towards
  39. He believes that keeping an AI agent constantly online remains too expensive due to token costs. because to have an agent that's always on and online is still too costly. um the tokens that it costs and so on and even though the technology is definitely there.
  40. He believes that the future of AI agents lies in anticipating user needs before the user is aware of them. the future really is where the agent can anticipate your need before you even think that it is coming up.
  41. He stated that traveling across Pakistan as a foreigner is challenging because safe and restricted areas are not comprehensively documented. as a foreigner, if you want to go to and travel all of Pakistan, it's really not that easy. Um, not everything is completely laid out. There are certain areas which you shouldn't be going to.
  42. His company worked with Noodle Seed to deploy onto ChatGPT and Anthropic. we're definitely working with one which is noodle seed which actually enabled us to come to on chat GPT anthropic extremely fast