Egypt’s mobility startup SWVL has continued with its acquisition spree with an announcement that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Mexico-based Urbvan Mobility Ltd (“Urbvan”), a shared mobility platform that provides tech-enabled transportation services to Latin America’s second-largest country by population.
Urbvan provides tech-enabled transportation services that aim to improve both qualities of life and safety standards of bus travel across vast geographical distances. Integrating mobility patterns with a shared vehicle aggregator platform, Swvl’s acquisition of Urbvan provides an excellent opportunity to accelerate Swvl’s mission to provide safer, faster, smarter, and more affordable mass transport for everyone no matter where they live.
Urbvan was founded in 2016, to use shared mobility as a catalyst for improving people’s lives. The company operates in 18 cities across Mexico with solutions for urban routes, intercity routes, for private organizations and for private on-demand needs. Similar to Swvl, Urbvan is committed to providing affordable, efficient transportation options free of harassment and other unsafe conditions.
SWVL in 2021 acquired Viapool to expand its market into Argentina and Chile. In April 2022, the company did a double as it acquired Volt lines to penetrate the Turkish market and also reached an agreement a few days later to acquire UK-based mobility startup, Zeelo for $100 million.
Speaking on the latest acquisition, Mostafa Kandil, Swvl Founder and CEO, said, “Urbvan was founded on the same principles as Swvl: to address the inefficiencies found in traditional mass transit in many parts of the world. With a significant footprint in Mexico, an impressive suite of Transport as a Service (TaaS) offerings, and strong relationships with local government players, this acquisition reinforces Swvl’s position as a leading provider of safer and more reliable mobility solutions which are required for vulnerable people living in densely populated, challenging markets with vast geographies.”
Renato Picard, Urbvan Co-Founder and Co-CEO, said, “Swvl and Urbvan share a vision to remodel mass transit to be safer for everyone, no matter their gender or social class, in the most challenging and densely populated urban neighborhoods in Latin America. We are excited to partner with Swvl as we work to illustrate best practices for tech-optimized day-to-day travel in Mexico. This transaction positions Urbvan to leverage Swvl’s global offerings to scale the platform both within the region and beyond. We look forward to using our combined capabilities to provide safe, efficient, and affordable shared mobility options across the world.”
João Matos Albino, Urbvan Co-Founder and Co-CEO said, “When looking for new growth opportunities, Swvl emerged as an ideal partner to help Urbvan’s ambition to creating the most efficient and sustainable transportation system in Latin America. We have been impressed by Swvl’s experience of rapidly scaling their platform globally while providing best-in-class mobility solutions and ensuring that both employees and users remain a top priority. We look forward to partnering with them on the next step of our journey.”
Youssef Salem, Swvl CFO said, “The acquisition of Urbvan contributes towards all the key objectives of our recently announced portfolio optimization plan: opportunity to enhance margins, turn cash flow positive in 2023, focus on high profitability segments TaaS and SaaS, expand in higher ticket fare markets and extract more value from our proprietary technology stack. Today’s announcement reinforces Swvl’s commitment to back regional champions in the mobility space. Looking ahead, we plan to continue to pursue accretive strategic initiatives to continue expanding best-in-class tech-enabled mass transit solutions in the most challenging markets across the world, where we believe our system can make the greatest difference to people’s daily lives.”
