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Author biography
Alejo Miragaya was the co-founder of Viapool, an Argentina-based startup offering shared mobility solutions. Viapool was acquired by Egyptian, NASDAQ-listed competitor SWVL in 2022.
Following the acquisition, Alejo worked at SWVL for a little over a year. He is now an angel investor.
Beginners (bad) luck
The SWVL acquisition was our second shot at an exit. In 2015, we had been “acquired” by a Chilean competitor, Safertaxi, which was consolidating various LATAM players under the same roof. We made an all-equity deal without much due diligence, reassured by Safertaxi’s own acquisition proposal by a large German automaker. We ended up regretting our docile scrutiny.
2 months after we merged with Safertaxi, the Germans retracted their acquisition offer. We now had to raise money as the consolidated Safertaxi group and co-design its strategy. A couple of months later, misalignment with Safertaxi’s board led us to “unmerge” Viapool, regaining our independence and retreating to our core markets.
The good old bullish days
Like many in the tech industry, SWVL was on a tear in 2021. It had outgrown its Egyptian market and was rapidly expanding, mostly through acquisitions, to faraway markets such as Turkey, Mexico and even the UK. These acquisitions confirmed an exciting new trend: the concrete scaling of emerging market startups and logically, the start of tangible M&A activity in the space.