Zain Group announces the creation of Zain Ventures and its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with both Pipe and Swvl to support growth across Zain’s regional footprint and beyond.
Zain Ventures was recently established to complement the existing investment portfolio of Zain Group and open the door to future investment opportunities in the venture capital and fintech world. Giving focus on digital innovations in the fast-growing electronic services and startup ecosystem.
Bader Al Kharafi, Zain vice chairman and Group CEO 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 have already enjoyed tremendous success in the investments we have made in venture capital entities and startups that show promising potential for boosting our revenues in new and developing verticals, and formalizing these investments under a single entity at this time will create shareholder value.”
Pipe is a fast-growing US-based fintech recognized as the world's first trading platform for recurring revenues. Its recent fund-raising brings the value of the entity at $2 billion in just under a year since its public launch in June 2020.
On the other hand, Swvl is set to go public in collaboration with Zain, among other companies, making it the first billion-dollar unicorn from the Middle East to list on Nasdaq and the only tech-enabled mass transit solutions company to list on any stock exchange. The transaction is expected to generate gross proceeds of up to $445 million. The funds would accelerate Swvl's growth plan of expanding to 20 countries by 2025 as it only currently operates across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Kenya, and Pakistan.
Commenting on the two entities, Malek Hammoud, chief investment and digital transformation officer added, “Pipe is a start-up that is re-writing the rule book on fintech development, and in which many other prominent and shrewd venture capitalists and investment companies are supporting strongly, as shown by the latest round of funding we all participated in. We believe Pipe offers an incredible opportunity for capital appreciation and revenue growth and we look forward to participating in its continuing expansion as more clients are added to the platform.”
Regarding Swvl, Hammoud added, “The enormous and relatively untapped entrepreneurial talents of the region are being showcased to the startup ecosystem global community through this transaction that will see Swvl as the first $1bn+ unicorn from the Middle East to list on Nasdaq.”