Middle East Unicorn Swvl’s Spectacular Rise and 99% Stock Tumble

In July 2021 the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, was briefly lit up in brilliant red, with animated electronic text scrolling up its height announcing “the Middle East’s first $1.5 billion unicorn to list on Nasdaq.” The splashy marketing was for Swvl, a company with lofty ambitions to become a hybrid of a ride-hailing app and bus service in cities across the globe.

Twenty months later, the Dubai-based company’s shares have dropped more than 99%. Its roughly $9 million market value is a shadow of the billion-dollar-plus valuation that once gave it so-called unicorn status. A deal to buy Turkish transit company Volt Lines largely using Swvl shares fell apart in January. Once trumpeted by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum as a symbol of the Middle East’s startup spirit, Swvl Holdings Corp. has become another example of tech-sector overreach—and how quickly investor money dried up once superlow interest rates went away. It also shows the perils of trying to build a business that straddles emerging markets vulnerable to currency shocks as the dollar rises.