Mobility Company Swvl Plans Layoffs After SPAC Merger

Mobility company Swvl, which recently went public, is reportedly planning on cutting nearly a third of its employees.

TechCrunch and Bloomberg reported that the company will lay off around 32 percent of its workforce. Swvl has more than 1,330 employees, per LinkedIn, so the layoffs could affect around 400 people.

The company, which is based in Dubai, began trading on the Nasdaq in late March after completing a SPAC merger with the blank-check company Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital. While it was still a private company, it raised more than $132 million from investors including BECO Capital and Vostok Ventures. It last raised a $26 million round of funding led by VNV Global in May 2020, per Crunchbase data.

It’s also acquired several companies in the past year and a half or so, most recently smart bus platform Zeelo for $100 million last month, according to Crunchbase.

Layoffs overall

Swvl, which lets passengers book rides, isn’t alone when it comes to layoffs. Tech companies ranging from Netflix to Klarna to Bolt have all cut staff, while others like Uber and Instacart have said they’ll slow down hiring. Layoffs and hiring slowdowns follow a period of rapid growth for tech companies, many of which brought on bounds of new employees after raising funding in a record year for venture investment. 

But after inflation, rising interest rates and geopolitical issues started affecting the public markets, tech companies in particular have taken a second look at their expenses and made cuts. With headcount often the biggest expense for companies, it tends to be one of the first places it looks to cut costs.

Here at Crunchbase News, we’ve started keeping track of tech layoffs in our database. You can learn more about layoffs affecting the tech industry here.

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