SWVL: Reinventing Urban Mass Transit
Ahmed Dahawy:
Ayman Ismail:
Transportation
September 2020
Entrepreneurship
SWVL is an Egyptian technology-based start-up providing a sharing-economy private bus service. Launched by Mostafa Kandil and two co-founders, SWVL launched their services in Egypt in 2017 and shortly after expanded to Kenya and Pakistan. SWVL capitalised on the need for modern affordable transportation in large dense urban regions in emerging markets. SWVL's rapid expansion and the visible success of their business model attracted multiple rounds of VC investments totalling more than USD76.5 by mid-2019 from several international venture capital funds to fuel their product development, customer acquisition and international growth. SWVL's rapid growth and business model challenged the dominant global players Uber and Careem, who quickly followed with a competing offering launching Uber Bus and Careem Bus services in Egypt. This case examines SWVL’s response to this challenge, covering different aspects of growth strategy, entrepreneurial marketing and competitive strategy.
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