SWVL to Fire 32% of its Employees, Hopes to Make a Profit by 2023

Swvl Holdings, a global provider of transformative tech-enabled mass transit solutions, announced today that it is implementing a portfolio optimization plan to promote efficiency and reduce central costs in order to accelerate its path to profitability and achieve cash flow positive status by 2023.

According to the company’s official press release, Swvl expects to reduce its headcount by approximately 32 percent. Such reductions will focus on roles automated by investments in the Company’s engineering and product and support functions. Swvl plans to provide monetary, non-monetary, and job placement support to help transition certain of its employees to new roles.

Swvl’s Transport as a Service (TaaS) business, through which it provides technology-enabled transportation for corporates, schools, universities, industrial facilities, airlines, and other institutional clients via its asset-light marketplace, and Software as a Service (SaaS) business, are both rapidly growing. They currently have over 500 live accounts across four continents, with over $5 million in monthly income.

The Company’s portfolio optimization program will include the following:

• Continuation and organic and inorganic growth of TaaS and SaaS business across all geographies of operations including Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, Japan, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Kenya, and Pakistan;
• Focus of the Business to Consumer (B2C) business on Egypt and Pakistan, currently the Company’s highest B2C revenue contribution and profitability markets;
• Optimizing B2C route networks in certain cities as well as headcount and operating expenses;
• Continued investment in developing the Company’s proprietary technology stack.

The recently closed acquisitions of TaaS and SaaS businesses Viapool, Volt Lines, and Shotl, and the pending acquisition of door2door, contribute to this growth. As a result of the above-mentioned portfolio optimization program, Swvl’s management currently expects that the company will be cash-flow positive in 2023.

Swvl’s big move comes just days after the darling of Pakistan’s startup space, Airlift, announced that it was reducing headcount by 31 percent across all markets and limiting the number of categories on the platform. An official statement read that the company was pulling out of certain markets, including Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Peshawar, Hyderabad, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Pretoria.