Swvl, an Egyptian-founded bus-hailing service, made its debut on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange on 31 March 2022. Swvl is currently valued at $1,5 billion as it started trading on the Nasdaq for the first time at $9.95 a share.
What is also interesting is that Swvl also has plans to expand into South Africa later in 2022 along with other parts of the world such as Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and the USA.
“We're getting a substantial amount of capital from the transaction — more than we originally anticipated, so we have an overfunded business plan. We're getting the public currency that allows us to recruit the best talent and do all of the M&A that we wanted to do. And we have long-term investors who really want to see through the execution and value creation,” said Youssef Salem, Chief Financial Officer at Swvl.
Mobility-as-a-Service
Swvl, which can also be described as a Mobility-as-a-Service company, was founded in 2017 by Mostafa Kandil in Cairo, Egypt. Essentially the startup is a mass-transit ride-hailing service that enables riders heading in the same direction to share a ride in a minivan or a bus.
For developing countries and especially in Afrika, it is potentially well-positioned given the popularity of minibusses popularly known as matatus in Kenya, danfos in Nigeria, and taxis in South Africa.
Earlier in 2022 we reported that Swvl had partnered with Nigeria's Moove for the supply and financing of electric busses in North Afrika, the Middle East, and Pakistan. At the time of the announcement, both companies said that the partnership will start with an initial rollout of 500 electric buses with the goal to scale up substantially. The partnership aims to enable mobility entrepreneurs on Swvl’s platform to access a range of brand-new buses.
Capital injection
Swvl Holdings’ ordinary shares and warrants commenced trading on Nasdaq under the ticker symbols SWVL and SWVLW. It was expected that proceeds from the Nasdaq listing will be approximately $640 million, including $160m in immediate capital and $480m over the next few weeks if certain closing conditions are met.
“The key thing for us is that we're the first tech-enabled mass transit player to list on any exchange globally — so not just the first out of the Middle East, we're the first out of the entire world,” said Salem.
— By Tefo Mohapi
