Your favorite Super App made its 10th trip around the sun this year, and boy what a ride it’s been! 🎢
Over the past decade, we’ve simplified life for over 50 million customers, created earning opportunities for over 2.5 million Captains, supported our communities from Morocco to Pakistan, and helped spur the growth of the startup ecosystem that now forms such an important pillar of the region’s growth.
A powerful mission to simplify and improve lives and build an awesome organisation that inspires was what powered us to overcome multiple challenges along the way. From working with governments to introduce an entirely new mode of transport in more than 100 cities, and competing neck-to-neck against one of the world’s biggest tech startups, to surviving the drastic shifts brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In celebration of Careem’s big 10, we’re recounting some fun facts you probably didn’t know about this Dubai-grown startup:
- Careem was founded on the first day of Ramadan in 2012
- ‘Careem’ (or كريم) means generous in Arabic
- Three babies have been born in Careem cars (one of which was even named ‘Kareem’!)
- The first line of code for Careem was written in Pakistan
- To date, over 12,000 colleagues have helped build Careem
- Over 100 startups have been founded by Careem alumni
- The longest Careem ride to date was 20 hours long
- The largest Careem food order was worth $938 from Hakkasan Restaurant in Atlantis, Dubai
- Careem rides have covered a total distance of 6.06 billion kilometers (that’s 40 trips to the sun!)
- In 2022, Careem hit 1 billion rides, with the most rides recorded in Pakistan (299 million), Saudi Arabia (242 million), and Egypt (230 million)
And while we can list 100 more, why read about Careem’s journey when you can watch it instead? 👀
To commemorate our big birthday, we’ve developed an unfiltered documentary that delivers a behind-the-scenes look into the Careem journey over the past ten years. We’ve captured the ambition, passion and hustle from the past ten years so that you can see just what it takes to build the region’s first billion dollar startup.