Swvl, a Cairo, Egypt-based bus transportation startup has just raised $42 million in a Series C funding round led by BECO Capital (Dubai), otf Jasoor Ventures, Sawari Ventures, DASH Ventures (Amman), MSA Capital (China), Vostok New Ventures and Endeavor Catalyst (New York).
About the CEO
Kandil is an engineering graduate from the American University, Cairo. He applied for petroleum engineering when he was 16. At the age of 21, he applied for an internship at Google and he was among the 30 individuals from Egypt who were selected by Google’s EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. There he joined Rocket Internet for which he founded a company called Carmudi. Along with a team of 40 people, he scaled the company to different cities within a short span of 6 months.
After that, he returned to Egypt and joined Sawari Ventures and then Otlob (a Rocket Internet startup). He joined Careem in Dubai and worked there for six months to help the company expand to 8 different cities in the UAE. While working at Careem he got fired with the zeal to start his very own transportation startup ‘Swvl’ along with Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh.
Swvl is currently operational in Cairo, Alexandria, and Nairobi. Though it is the first startup to launch an app-based bus transportation service in Egypt – facing stiff competition from Uber and Careem (now part of Uber) who launched the same service in Cairo last year and have also expanded to Alexandria and Saudi.
Statements enclosing the deal
The funding will be utilized to expand into other regions of Africa including Nigeria.
“The plan is to be in at least two or three more African cities by the end of the year. Lagos, Nigeria, is most likely the next market.” said Mostafa Kandil in a statement
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