INVESTMENT WATCH- Ride-hailing app Careem has invested USD 500k in Swvl, a three-month-old Egyptian bus transportation service, Reuters reports. Careem will take an undisclosed minority stake in Swvl and its CEO and co-founder, Magnus Olsson, will take a board seat. Reuters says Swvl was founded in April by a former Careem executive. “We want them to run and learn and develop at a very high pace and high agility and we believe the best way for them to do that is to stay independent,” Olsson told Reuters. The newswire says Swvl, which uses the passenger's location and destination to find the shortest possible journey time based on the nearest bus station that travels along fixed routes, has 50,000 passengers and 200 buses using the mobile app, CEO and Co-Founder Mostafa Kandil told Reuters. “Swvl will use the Careem investment to increase its workforce, develop new app features, and to expand in Cairo and into other cities, including Egypt's second-largest city Alexandria, and to Middle Eastern and Asian countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan next year.”

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