Careem co-founders Abdulla Elyas (middle), Magnus Olsson (right) and Mudassir Sheikha image credit : Careem

Dubai based ride-hailing startup Careem has now been said to be testing a new Bus service expected to begin September as per a new report from Bloomberg which states of the feature going initially live in 4 cities ahead of a possible roll-out across all 14 countries it operates in beginning next month.

The Careem Bus is a division said to be aimed at attracting low-income earners for its service with significant but undisclosed capital being allocated for the project.

Since its launch 6 years ago, Careem has grown to be the major ride-hailing company in the Middle Eastern region with 20 million registered users and well over $571 million raised so far.

Valued at $1.2 Billion with its most previous round of funding, Careem has been reported to be in talks of raising $500 million along with early talks of a potential IPO aimed for January next year.

Careem has expanded into other services in a bid to keep up with competition from Uber in the region with this service being one among many of them. Uber was also reported to have held talks with Careem over merging its Middle Eastern unit with the company as was seen in the case of a merger with major South East Asian ride-hailing company Grab.

No official confirmation has been given concerning this reports so far.

Careem counts several notable investors including Rakuten, Didi Chuxing, Coatue Management, Daimler, Kingdom Holdings and the Abraaj Group among several others.

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