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.
اضافة اعلان
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.
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