Swvl, a Dubai-headquartered mass transportation startup, has recently announced its expansion to Jordan. Swvl is entering the markets by the launch of its transportation service offering for businesses. Its core product is the hailing bus service for the consumers who do not live in the country yet.
On Swvl’s mobile app Amman is now in the main list of cities, but it does not have any routes like the lines yet, and it shows that the company may soon launch its consumer services in this city. Kareem Zinaty, the former Careem executive, is now leading the company Swvl in Jordan. He has now joined Swvl this month and was previously with Careem, where he was serving the company in Jordan.
For the Cairo-born company, Jordan is the fourth market that had expanded successfully in Pakistan and Kenya last year. Swvl Business offers the solution of employee transportation to businesses. The service is quietly operating in all of the company’s markets, and according to its official website, it has clients like Samsung, PepsiCo, Axa, and PwC who are using it.
The service of Swvl allows employers to create a custom route and stations, with the schedules to help the employees with the easy commuting. The website has no such details about whether the employers can offer the service as a perk to its employees or share only the price with them (just to subsidize the transportation), but it would be beneficial to assume that Swvl offers some flexible options around this.
The expansion by the company comes at a time when the transportation startups all around the world are witnessing a big drop in demand due to Covid-19 lockdowns. There is almost no lockdown in the markets where Swvl operates now, but the recent increase in the Covid-19 cases in the second wave of coronavirus may affect the company.
Swvl has been experimenting with a few of its other things as well like including carpooling in Kenya, and the intercity bus rides in the country Pakistan. This mobility startup had already raised around $20 Million in its investment round before Covid-19; however, it had not announced publically, and the total raise of it to over $90 million as per reports.
