Careem, the company that raised $60 million last year, has declared its acquisition of Savaree, Lahore’s home grown pioneer of car hailing services. Savaree was founded by Madeeha Hassan in January 2014 at a Code for Pakistan Civic Hackathon. She will now be joining Careem’s global product team and will serve as a Product Lead for Pakistan.
This is a smart move by Savaree considering the entry of the taxi giant Uber in Pakistan. Without any investment, Savaree stood no chance of matching let alone beating the low prices offered by Uber. Now it will be a face-off between the big guns – Uber and Careem in Pakistan, with Careem still being the underdog.
Junaid Iqbal, the Managing Director of Careem says:
We have had serious admiration for Madeeha, her grit, her entrepreneurial spirit and her awesome tenacity. She built Savaree from ground up, knows the nuts and bolts of this business and we are super excited to have her on board and lead product innovation for Pakistan. Careem’s strength in the region has been its localization of products, and Madeeha’s addition to the team is a shot in the arm on that front.
Madeeha Hassan, the Founder of Savaree, had the following to say about her company’s acquisition:
This is still dream like for me. Hailing from Sadiqabad, graduating in Biotechnology, launching a tech startup, and to be acquired within 2 years, and now to join Careem, the region’s most exciting startups. I see in Careem the same vision and values that I identify with deeply.
Careem was formally launched in Lahore in October 2015 and since then has launched its operations in Karachi and in Islamabad. It is the largest and fastest growing app based car hailing service in the MENAP region, a fact that Uber is set to change.
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
