Mudassir Sheikha

In 2012 two McKinsey consultants in Dubai quit to build a website for booking corporate cars, on the reading that the ride-hailing wave was already forming globally and that Uber had not yet localized for the Middle East and South Asia.¹ Eight years later Uber bought what they had built, Careem, for $3.1 billion.

Mudassir Sheikha is the co-founder and chief executive of Careem, a Dubai-based ride-hailing company that grew into an "everyday super-app" offering rides, food and grocery delivery, bike-share, and digital payments across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. Careem became the first technology unicorn born in the region, was acquired by Uber, and was later partly separated back out from it.

Background

Sheikha is a Pakistani-origin entrepreneur who grew up in Karachi. Sourcing on his nationality is mixed, with some accounts describing him as an American of Memon background and others as simply a Pakistani entrepreneur.

He studied at the University of Southern California, earning a bachelor's degree in economics and computer science, then completed a master's degree in computer science at Stanford. His early career ran through the Silicon Valley startup Brience. He returned to Pakistan and co-founded DeviceAnywhere, a mobile-device testing company acquired by Keynote Systems in 2008. He then joined McKinsey & Company in the United Arab Emirates as a management consultant, rising to associate partner over roughly four years.¹

Getting started

In 2012, Sheikha left McKinsey alongside Magnus Olsson, a fellow consultant at the same firm, to build what became Careem. The two ex-McKinsey Dubai colleagues founded the company together. Sheikha's framing of the opportunity was that the ride-hailing wave was clearly forming globally, but Uber had not yet localized its service for the Middle East and South Asia, leaving the region open.

Careem started narrower than the consumer app it became. It launched in 2012 as a website-based corporate car-booking service in Dubai, before pivoting into consumer ride-hailing. Sheikha has described the founding ambition as building "a big business" with "a big impact," one that would "simplify and improve lives" and "create an awesome organisation that inspires."¹ A third co-founder, Abdulla Elyas, joined in January 2015 after Careem acquired the Saudi delivery startup enwani.²

What he built

Careem raised capital in steps as it scaled: a seed round of about $1.7 million in 2013 from STC Ventures, a $10 million Series B in 2014, a $60 million Series C led by The Abraaj Group in November 2015, a $350 million Series D in December 2016 valuing the company at roughly $1 billion, and a $150 million Series E in June 2017 whose investors included Kingdom Holding and Mercedes-Benz. Further rounds of around $200 million followed in February 2018, near a $2 billion valuation, and again in October 2018.

In January 2020, Uber acquired Careem for $3.1 billion, structured as $1.4 billion in cash and $1.7 billion in convertible notes, the first Middle East technology unicorn exit outside Israel. Reporting at the time said the deal made roughly 75 Careem employees dollar millionaires.³ Across various years Careem was cited as operating in more than 70 cities across 10 countries, with other figures citing over 100 cities in 14 countries, more than 1,300 employees, and over a million drivers on the platform.

In December 2023, the UAE telecom group e& acquired a majority stake of about 50.03 percent, for roughly $400 million, in the Careem "Super App" business as it separated from Uber's ride-hailing arm. Uber retained the ride-hailing business and a stake in the Super App, and the co-founders kept equity in the Super App entity. In July 2025, Careem ceased ride-hailing operations in Pakistan after about a decade there, even as it expanded remittance and payment services into 18 European countries that same year. Careem is often credited with seeding a large alumni network, sometimes called the "Careem mafia," reported to include more than 600 former employees who went on to found or co-found other regional startups.³

How he operates

Sheikha emphasizes direct ownership of service quality rather than pure marketplace logic. Careem runs its own grocery operations to control inventory accuracy, for example, rather than only aggregating third-party vendors. He describes a philosophy of adapting to customers: "There's generally a view that the world is going to adapt to you versus you adapting to the world," he told Rest of World in 2025, adding that "we adapt to our customers and that just gives us the edge."³

He favors outsized targets, preferring "the craziest goal that we can set ourselves up for," and has pursued depth over breadth, choosing to go deeper in the roughly 70 cities Careem already served rather than rushing into unfamiliar markets. As an example of service obsession, he has cited apologizing to customers with gifts, such as chocolate boxes, after service failures.²

Where things stand

As of 2025, Sheikha remains chief executive of Careem, steering its "Super App" era after the separation from Uber. He believes the company can become a kind of "digital butler for everyday life," spanning more than 15 services including rides, food, groceries, pharmacy, micromobility, and CareemPay financial products.³ The company has been majority-owned by e& since December 2023, while Uber retains the ride-hailing business plus a Super App stake. Careem has been pulling back from some legacy markets, ending ride-hailing in Pakistan in July 2025, while expanding financial and remittance products into Europe.

Key facts

• Careem began in 2012 as a corporate car-booking website in Dubai, not a consumer ride app; the pivot to ride-hailing came later.
• Sheikha and co-founder Magnus Olsson were both ex-McKinsey Dubai consultants who left the same firm to found the company.
• Uber's $3.1 billion acquisition in January 2020 was the first Middle East unicorn exit outside Israel and reportedly minted about 75 employee millionaires.
• Careem alumni, sometimes called the "Careem mafia," are credited with founding more than 600 regional startups.
• In December 2023, the UAE group e& bought a majority stake in Careem's non-ride-hailing "Super App" business, effectively separating it from Uber.
• His path ran Karachi to USC to Stanford to a Silicon Valley startup to DeviceAnywhere in Pakistan to McKinsey in Dubai to Careem.