Zain Ventures invests in Pipe.com and swvl.com to accelerate their growth across Middle East

KUWAIT CITY/MIAMI/DUBAI — Zain Group, a leading  telecom innovator in seven markets across the Middle East and Africa announces the creation of Zain Ventures and the closing of investments and signing a memorandum of understanding with both Pipe and Swvl to support their growth across Zain’s regional footprint and beyond. Zain Ventures was recently established to complement the existing investment portfolio of Zain Group and open the door to future investment opportunities in the venture capital, fintech, and tech world, focusing on digital innovations in the fast-growing electronic services and startup ecosystem. Pipe is a fast-growing US based fintech recognized as the world's first trading platform for recurring revenues with its recent fund-raising valuing the entity at $2 billion in just under a year since its public launch in June 2020, making it one of the fastest fintech to reach this valuation in history. Swvl is transforming the $1 trillion global mass transit market. The company’s proprietary mobility solutions, powered by cutting-edge technology, are helping to solve mass transit supply and demand challenges in complex, emerging markets — empowering massively underserved communities with transportation solutions that are reliable, convenient, safe, and affordable. Swvl is set to go public through a formidable merger with the women-only led special purpose acquisition company, Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital, in collaboration with Agility, Luxor Capital Growth, and Zain, valuing the startup at $1.5 billion marking it as the first $1 billion-plus unicorn from the Middle East to list on Nasdaq and the only tech-enabled mass transit solutions company to list on any stock exchange. The transaction is expected to generate gross proceeds of up to $445 million, which will be used to fund and accelerate Swvl's growth plan with a goal of driving $1 billion of annual gross revenue and expanding to 20 countries by 2025. Bader Al Kharafi, Zain vice chairman and group CEO commented, “The establishment of Zain Ventures is another step in Zain Group’s ‘4Sight’ strategy and progression to become a full-fledged digital services company. We have already enjoyed tremendous success in the investments we have made in venture capital entities and startups that show promising potential for boosting our revenues in new and developing verticals, and formalizing these investments under a single entity at this time will create shareholder value.” “We are extremely excited and confident that Zain Ventures’ first investments in fast-growing and world-leading entities in their respective industries, Pipe and Swvl will be value accretive to all parties as we accelerate their growth across the region and beyond. We are keen on participating in and encouraging the global entrepreneurial startup ecosystem.” Commenting on the two entities, Malek Hammoud, chief investment and digital transformation officer added, “Pipe is a startup that is rewriting the rule book on fintech development, and in which many other prominent and shrewd venture capitalists and investment companies are supporting strongly, as shown by the latest round of funding we all participated in. We believe Pipe offers an incredible opportunity for capital appreciation and revenue growth and we look forward to participating in its continuing expansion as more clients are added to the platform.” More on Pipe Pipe was founded in September 2019 with the mission of giving software-as-a-service companies a way to receive their revenue upfront, by pairing them with investors on a marketplace that pays a discounted rate for the annual value of those contracts. The goal of the platform is to offer companies with recurring revenue streams access to capital, so they are not required to dilute their ownership by accepting external capital or forced to take out loans. Over 4,000 companies have signed up on the Pipe trading platform since its public launch in June 2020. More on Swvl In just four years, Swvl has become the industry leader in mass-transit across 10 cities in Egypt, Kenya, Pakistan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan with plans to expand to 20 countries by 2025. Swvl’s revenues and markets have grown rapidly, with more than 1.4 million riders booking more than 46 million rides to date with thousands of drivers on Swvl’s platform. Swvl empowers drivers in emerging markets to earn approximately double that of other ride-sharing platforms. With its SaaS and transportation as a service offerings, Swvl has already enabled more than 100 organizations around the world to reduce costs through dynamic routing, network planning, demand estimation, fleet optimization, and other leading transit services. More on Zain Ventures Investing in the world of venture capital provides Zain with a vast range of opportunities to diversify and expand its reach in the surrounding ecosystem. Over the years, Zain has expanded its relationship with regional and international venture capital funds such as MEVP, Wamda, and Colle Capital, supporting the respective portfolio companies whenever appropriate.   Zain has also continued its active engagement in direct strategic investments in a variety of promising startups from the region, offering them support on multiple fronts including a wide geographical reach and progressive customer base for expansion opportunities.  Read more Business    (window.globalAmlAds = window.globalAmlAds || []).push('admixer_async_509089081')   (window.globalAmlAds = window.globalAmlAds || []).push('admixer_async_552628228') Read More Gold Prices Rise in Jordan by 60 Piasters Number of Registered Companies Increases by 9% in the First Quarter of the Year Gold Prices Rise Amid Concerns Over Potential Tariff Impact