Careem Invests $500,000 in Egyptian Startup Swvl

Careem buys a minority stake, for the first time, in Swvl, Egyptian transportation startup that connects users with private buses and allows them to reserve buses and pay the company’s fare through Swvl mobile application.

Swvl is not a transportation app that takes commuters from one destination to another with fixed meeting point instead it uses its passenger’s location and destination to find the best possible journey time on the basis of the nearest bus station. Swvl has 200 buses which travel along fixed routes, 50,000 users and they aim to have 300,000 trips by the end of 2017.

Swvl's app was developed by Ahmed Sabah, and launched by its co- founder Mostafa Kandil who was also a former Market Launcher at Careem, Kandil quit his job to launch Swvl last April.

On the other hand, Magnus Olsson, Careem’s Co-Founder & Chief Experience Officer, who will join Swvl’s board, told Reuters that they aim to help Swvl  “run, learn, and develop”  quickly. And “the best way for them to do that is to stay independent,” he added

Swvl is planning to use the investment in recruiting more people, improving their app through introducing new features and expand more and more in Cairo and other Egyptian cities as well as some other Middle Eastern and Asian countries. 

Image Credit: Menabytes