The result is a company that has put its entrepreneurial roots into a new chapter, guided by the founders’ vision of making everyday life easier throughout the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
For founders, ie& brings much more than money. Mudassir said, “What makes ie&partner so powerful is how its entire ecosystem works as one. It’s an interconnected system built on shared technology, data and customer trust.”
This foundation allows Careem to connect seamlessly and unlock value on a completely different scale. “Now we’re bringing ride, food delivery, grocery delivery, payments and DineOut into one, and when customers use four or more services, their engagement increases by a factor of ten. The synergy is huge, and it accelerates everything we’re building for the region.”
Mudassir says the platform, which serves more than 75 million customers in 10 countries and more than 70 cities, is a testament to what the UAE can build and deliver: “Careem shows that cutting-edge technology can be built in the UAE and shared throughout the region. We started with the goal of making people’s lives easier and building an inspiring organization, and we still managed to achieve it at the beginning.”
Careem’s long-term opportunity is among the largest digital consumer markets in the world. Its total addressable market in the MENA region is worth more than $500 billion.
But the competition is uphill. The UAE home delivery situation is one of the worst in the world, with global and regional players fighting for a share in a market defined by high expectations and where customers can switch services easily.
This is why Careem’s universal app strategy is so important to its future: the need for seamless, technology-enabled services reaches almost every aspect of daily life, giving the company room to diversify and grow while staying closely connected to the needs of its customers and Captains across the region.
A quintessential UAE home brand
Founded in a country known for its amazing mix of people, Careem is a product of its nature. The UAE is home to more than 200 nationalities, with expatriates making up around 88 percent of the population, a combination that creates one of the most diverse communities in the world. This diversity shapes everyday life across the Emirates, and it shapes Careem as well.
Open the app and you’ll see that combination echoed in the dishes available to order, from Emirati favorites and South Asian staples to Levantine street food, East Asian luxury dishes, and new global trends that reached the UAE long before they appeared elsewhere.
The platform is a natural part of this melting pot, connecting millions of users in the UAE to tens of thousands of restaurant partners and hundreds of stores. This combination of scale and cultural proximity is part of what makes Careem feel embedded in the national narrative, even as it serves millions more across the region.
“The UAE has been Careem’s home since day one – it’s where our story began and where we continue to grow. The sense of purpose, community, and level of ambition here reflects our own. It’s a place that makes you believe big ideas can be built, and that mindset continues to drive me and everyone at Careem every day.”
It supports the UAE’s SME ecosystem
Perhaps the biggest issue is the influence the platform has on small and medium enterprises in the UAE, which remain the backbone of the country’s economy and increasingly depend on Careem as a growth partner.
During the most difficult months of the pandemic, the company reduced the pressure on small restaurant partners by reducing commissions in all key markets, including major cuts in stores with only a few branches. It later switched to a fixed cost model for restaurants, lowering commission rates to a fraction of industry standard rates and giving independent operators more room to protect their margins.
Aside from merchant pricing support, Careem offers the kind of visibility and reach that most SMEs can’t build independently. Restaurants and stores get access to curated campaigns, targeted in-app promotions and highly targeted audiences looking for their next meal, service or Quik store. Careem Pay extends this support to online merchants. Its one-click checkout feature allows even the smallest merchant to access millions of saved payment methods, reducing abandonment rates and helping drive consistent, high conversions.
This commitment to SMEs is also reflected in partnerships with local brands, including FIX, a local success story that brought “Dubai chocolate” to the world. By bringing FIX to the platform, Careem creates a space where two Made in UAE businesses reinforce each other. Customers get the best local brand with ease, while FIX gains access to a wider digital customer base without needing to scale its assets.
“Small businesses bring a lot of character and creativity to the UAE, and we want to give them every opportunity to grow. When a local product like FIX joins the platform, it is quickly accessible to customers. And they don’t need to build delivery vehicles or invest in big marketing campaigns. They can focus on what they do best while we help them reach more people,” said Mudassir.
O Captain! My captain!
No Careem travel celebration would be complete without seeing the people who make all the ordering, boarding, and delivery possible. The captains of this company, more than 3.5 million of them since its establishment, are a real engine of service, traveling in cities every hour of the day to satisfy the wishes of millions of customers.
Many have built long-term careers on the platform, built relationships with customers, and become familiar faces in neighborhoods across the Emirates. Their dedication is at the heart of Careem’s story and gives real personality to the promise to make everyday life easier.
To support them, the platform has integrated AI into all of its services, creating an experience that feels intuitive to customers and more efficient for people completing each task. In food delivery, for example, AI is used to adjust Captain’s pick-up locations in real time based on demand patterns. During peak hours or in busy areas, the radius is tightened so that delivery stays within the expected window.
“The customer may accept waiting for 30 or 40 minutes, but when it gets closer to 50 minutes or an hour the risk of abandoning the order suddenly rises,” said Mudassir. “That kind of behavioral understanding feeds right back into the algorithm, which guides how delivery points are scheduled and how Captain’s supply is managed, including incentive models that keep the network balanced.”
The overarching goal is to create a platform that is predictive, seamless and secure across all touch points. AI helps Careem anticipate needs, reduce friction and make life easier for customers and Captains.
As of today, more than 85 percent of customer care interactions are solved with AI – a number that is expected to grow by 2026. That same focus on simple matters affects Captains, many of whom rely on the platform not only to earn but also to send money home.
Changing the way the district distributes money
With Careem Pay, customers can send money abroad to 35+ countries, pay bills and charge services, or transfer funds instantly to friends and family with peer-to-peer payments. These tools are especially useful for Captains and many citizens who send money overseas. It’s no surprise, then, that outbound funds have become one of the platform’s strongest growth strategies, as sure a sign as any of the fast, easy-to-move methods that have exploded in popularity.
Careem’s broad trajectory reflects a platform that is gaining depth, scale and customer loyalty at an incredible pace. Careem Plus members have been the driving force behind this growth, contributing more than 55 percent of total GTV in the second quarter and relying on an average of 2.7 services per month.
The platform continues to expand its reach as well, recently expanding food delivery in Al Ain and Sharjah and launching grocery services in Riyadh. Together, these shifts show how quickly customers are deepening their engagement with the app and how deeply Careem is embedding itself in the region’s everyday life.
So, the next time you see that dark green smiley face flashing in traffic or on your screen, think of it as another reminder of how far the UAE has come. A captain scouting a city, a local restaurant reaching new customers, a simple tap setting an entire ecosystem in motion. It represents more than a delivery or transaction. It represents a world where ideas grow fast, where people from all over help shape everyday life, and where a home-grown company can be part of the nation’s rhythm.
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