BUILDING · INDIA · 2026

Infrastructure for the people the internet skipped.

I build platforms for the parts of India's economy that digitisation left behind — the neighbourhood shop with no online identity, the electrician nobody can find twice, the aviation engineer applying into a void. Beneath them moves over ₹100 lakh crore of local commerce, still running on trust alone with no infrastructure to carry it. Two ventures, one thesis: give people a verified place to stand, and the value they already create becomes discoverable, bankable and compounding.

ARIFUL ISLAM KHAN · FOUNDER
Ariful Islam Khan, founder
2 Ventures live
6 Products shipped
The most valuable economy in India is the one that starts right outside your door.
THE OPPORTUNITY · 63M INDIAN SMBs WITH NO DIGITAL PRESENCE
The engineer behind the builder

Precision in the air.
Purpose on the ground.

Aircraft Maintenance Engineer by profession.
Problem solver by mindset.
Builder of systems, products and opportunities by vision.

Ariful Islam Khan
Aircraft Maintenance Engineer
Air India
Attentionto detail
Quickdecision making
Safetyfirst mindset
Systemsthinking

In aviation, there is no room for assumptions. Only discipline, awareness and precision keep everything in the air.

Vision & Mission

Verified identity is the unlock. Everything else is a feature.

India's informal economy runs on trust that never leaves the street it was earned on. A plumber with twenty happy customers has no record of it. A shop 300 metres away might as well not exist. Both ventures attack the same gap from different ends — one in the neighbourhood, one in the hangar.

The vision

Every neighbourhood in India running on its own digital nervous system — where discovery, commerce, hiring, and emergency response all happen between people who live within walking distance of each other.

Not another marketplace taking a cut of every job. A public utility for local trust, where the merchant keeps the margin and the customer keeps the relationship.

The mission

Build the identity layer first and monetise the businesses, never the people. Consumers pay nothing, ever. Merchants pay for reach and tools once there is an audience worth reaching — not a rupee before.

Ship profitably and prove the model in one cluster before spending anywhere else. Growth that needs discounting to survive isn't growth.

The 2030 case

What it looks like if this works.

These are the targets the NearBuy plan is built around — the scale at which a hyperlocal trust layer stops being an app and starts being infrastructure.

0M
Lives reached
Active users across 600+ Indian cities by 2030.
0M
Jobs created
The hiring ripple as neighbourhood businesses go digital and grow.
₹0L Cr
Local GDP unlocked
Value returned to the informal economy that earns it.
0M
Businesses addressable
Small businesses in India with no digital identity today.

Figures are 2030 targets and market sizing from the NearBuy plan, not results achieved. The reasoning behind each is documented in the investor deck — available on request.

Ventures

What I'm building.

Two companies, both live in production — one rebuilding how a neighbourhood finds and trusts the people in it, the other rebuilding how aviation finds its engineers.

01

NearBuy

FLAGSHIP · LAUNCH PREP

A hyperlocal super-app for one neighbourhood at a time — local discovery, a neighbourhood feed, merchant storefronts, a services marketplace, jobs, and an SOS safety network in a single product. Verified, geo-anchored identity is the core asset; merchants subscribe, consumers never pay, and no commission is taken on any job.

PRODUCTION
02

IATAS

LIVE

The Integrated Aviation Talent Acquisition System — talent infrastructure for global aviation. Verified engineers build a professional profile with their type ratings and certifications, and airlines, MROs and OEMs recruit them directly. It replaces applying into a void with being found by the operators who need that exact licence.

PRODUCTION
Contact

Let's talk.

Building something hyperlocal, hiring in aviation, or want the investor material — the fastest way to reach me is WhatsApp. I read every message myself.

NEW DELHI · INDIA