Here’s the pitch deck Careem

used to raise $1.7 million as its

first venture capital round in 2013
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June 11, 2019

United Arab Emirates yesterday became the first country to grant

approval to Uber-Careem deal. The $3.1 billion deal that consists of
$1.7 billion convertible notes and $1.4 billion cash is the largest exit
for a startup in the Middle East & North Africa. As many have
argued, Careem’s exit will have a huge impact on MENA’s
entrepreneurial ecosystem. Mudassir Sheikha, the co-founder and
CEO of Careem, sees the deal as a lift-off moment for the Middle
Eastern ecosystem.

“A transaction of this magnitude puts the region’s emerging

technology ecosystem squarely on the map of regional and foreign
investors. It will radically and irreversibly enhance the support and
funding opportunities for local entrepreneurs. Every ecosystem needs
a landmark transaction, and we hope this will be ours,” he had said
in a letter to Careem employees after the deal was announced.

The exit as we have previously reported in a series of different pieces

created many winners including Careem’s founders, investors,
employees, and even some early interns. The early investors in the
company including STC Ventures generated 100x returns on their
original investment. But just like any other startup, it wasn’t easy for
Careem in its early days. There were many VCs and individuals who
passed on Careem when it was raising its first round – BECO Capital
being one of them (they later invested in company’s Series B).
The company that had started as a corporate chauffeur service in
2012 by two former McKinsey consultants Mudassir Sheikha and
Magnus Olsson, had launched its first mobile app in February 2013.
Around the same time, Careem initiated their fundraising efforts to
raise $600,000 as their first external investment round.

We’ve been able to obtain the pitch deck (thanks to Careem’s

communications team) Careem had used at the time to raise this
investment. In spite of some investors declining to invest in the
company, Careem went on to raise almost 3 times ($1.7 million) of
what it had originally planned and announced the round in
September 2013. STC Ventures, Oqal Investment Network, and some
angels were the investors who took part in this round.

Careem’s co-founders on multiple occasions have said that their

vision about what they were building continued to evolve as they
scaled the company and its evident from the pitch deck which also
happens to have a very honest warning on a dedicated slide stating
that its a high-risk investment.

Here is the full deck with all 21 slides.

Zubair Naeem Paracha

Founder at MENAbytes

A tech and startup enthusiast based in Riyadh. Zubair apart from

leading MENAbytes is also building Qraar, a career discovery and
development platform for millennials in MENA. He can be reached
on Linkedin, Twitter or zubair [at] menabytes [dot] com.