Kuwaits Zain Ventures invests in Pipe Swvl to support business growth

Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications Company (Zain) has launched Zain Ventures to explore future investment opportunities in the venture capital, financial technology (fintech), and the technology world, with a focus on digital innovations in the electronic services and startup ecosystem.

The Kuwaiti firm announced the closing of investments and signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with both Pipe and Swvl to help them boost their growth regionally and globally, Zain said in a statement on Sunday.

Pipe, the world’s first trading platform for recurring revenues, is a US-based fintech that has been recently valued at $2 billion in less than a year since its public launch in June 2020.

As for Swvl, the ridesharing app is transforming the $1 trillion global mass transit market as it entered into an agreement with Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital for a business combination, which will result in Swvl being the first $1.5 billion unicorns in the Middle East to list on Nasdaq.

The transaction is expected to generate gross proceeds of up to $445 million, which will be used in financing Swvl’s growth plan with a goal of achieving $1 billion of annual gross revenue and expanding to 20 countries by 2025.

Swvl currently operates in 10 cities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Kenya, and Pakistan.

The Vice-Chairman and CEO of Zain, Bader Al Kharafi, 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 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,” Al Kharafi pointed out.

Earlier on Sunday, Zain announced that it will invest $10 million (KWD 3 million) in the newly-formed business combination between the Dubai-based ridesharing app Swvl and Nasdaq-listed Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital.

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