Umair Javed

Founder & CEO tkxel

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Umair Javed founded tkxel in 2008 out of a university lab in Lahore and has run it since. The company builds software for other companies — custom development, SaaS products, cloud and DevOps work, and now AI systems, which it puts at the centre of how it describes itself. What makes the story distinctive is less the service line than the direction of travel: tkxel began as a Pakistani engineering shop competing against an assumption that Pakistan could not produce world-class technology, and is now a US-headquartered firm in Reston, Virginia with more than 800 staff and offices in Pakistan, Portugal and Saudi Arabia, three consecutive years on the Inc. 5000, and Fortune 500 clients. Javed has taught computer science at LUMS as adjunct faculty throughout, and several of the students he mentored went on to senior roles inside the company.

Career Highlights

• Founded tkxel in 2008 — by his account with five people and $500 — and remains Founder and CEO, named as such on the company’s own author page and in a January 2026 company news item.
• Grew the company to more than 800 professionals, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with offices in Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
• Ranked on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies in 2023, 2024 and 2025, attending the 2025 gala in Phoenix; tkxel was also shortlisted for the 2026 Asian Inspiring Workplaces Awards.
• Graduated from LUMS in 2006 with a master’s in computer science and the Presidential Gold Medal.
• Taught MS and senior-year computer science courses at LUMS and other universities as adjunct faculty for more than eight years.
• Founded Nutty Apps, a games studio reported at 650 million downloads across 150 countries, and SchoolDiary, an edtech platform reported to serve more than 800 schools.
• Reported by Grit Daily as running Pakistan’s sixth-largest software exporter in 2024, with tkxel valued at roughly $150 million.
• Member of the Forbes Technology Council, a paid membership programme with self-authored profiles rather than editorial selection.

Professional Journey

Javed’s route into business ran through the university rather than around it. He completed a master’s in computer science at LUMS in 2006 and took the Presidential Gold Medal with it, and by the time he graduated he was already teaching there — he has served as adjunct faculty on MS and senior-year computer science courses at LUMS and other institutions for over eight years, a commitment he has kept up alongside running a company.

tkxel started in 2008 inside a lab, with a handful of people and almost no capital. Javed has framed the founding in explicitly national terms: “tkxel began as a rebellion against the idea that Pakistan couldn’t produce world-class tech.” The early model was straightforward outsourced services, and the differentiator was the calibre of engineer he could recruit — often from the classes he taught. Fortune 500 clients followed sooner than the company’s size would suggest.

The business then widened in two directions. Geographically, it moved its centre of gravity to the United States, taking a headquarters in Reston, Virginia while keeping substantial engineering in Pakistan and adding offices in Portugal and Saudi Arabia. Commercially, it moved up the stack from staffed development toward digital transformation programmes and, most recently, an explicitly AI-first positioning. Its published clients include Groupon, ABB, Knowles, Signal, Canvas AI and Live More, and the company reports that 73 per cent of clients return for long-term work.

Javed has not confined himself to tkxel. He founded Nutty Apps, a mobile games studio that grew from a children’s gaming brand with six million downloads in 2015 to a reported 650 million downloads across 150 countries; SchoolDiary, an edtech platform; Strategic Alliancez, a digital marketing arm working with Pakistani brands internationally; UrbanGalleria, which sells rural artisans’ textiles; and Lean Bricks, an angel investment platform through which he has backed more than twenty startups. He is a member of the Forbes Technology Council — a paid programme, not an editorial honour — and received a Digital Leaders Award in 2024.

The company’s recent recognitions are external and dated: three consecutive Inc. 5000 rankings covering revenue growth through 2024, a shortlisting for the 2026 Asian Inspiring Workplaces Awards announced in March 2026, and a CMMI Level 3 appraisal for its software services. tkxel remains independent and privately held.

Education

Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)

Master’s degree, Computer Science, 2006; Presidential Gold Medal

A bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore was asserted by an earlier version of this profile but could not be confirmed against any live named source and has been removed.