company raised million in a Series D round, based on a billion valuation for the company. Saudi Telecom in this funding round invested in a 10% stake in Careem. In October 2018, the company secured million funding from its existing investors. On 26 March 2019, Uber agreed to acquire the company for billion, including billion in cash and billion in convertible notes, making Careem the first unicorn startup company in the Middle East outside of Israel. Careem Now In 2018, Careem announced it was launching a food delivery service app called Careem Now, delivering food and pharmaceuticals, initially in Dubai and Jeddah. In 2019, the service expanded into Riyadh and Amman, and announced it was also launching in Pakistan. On 21 April 2020, the service expanded its Dubai service into delivering groceries and other essential products. On 4 May 2020, Uber Eats announced they were exiting the United Arab Emirates and that their services would be offered through Careem Now. Women In Pakistan, Careem employs women drivers. Women are also employed as drivers in Egypt and Jordan. In Saudi Arabia, women make up 80% of the company's customers. Careem is planning to have a female workforce of 20,000 by the year 2020. In Saudi Arabia, Careem and Uber have started recruiting women, as part of the Saudi Women to drive movement. Women were legally allowed to start driving on 24 June 2018, and Uber and Careem women drivers were able to start working on the same day. Layoffs Due to the impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Careem announced on its blog it was laying off 31% of its workforce, amounting to 536 employees. Criticism Regulations Taxi protests in Egypt Uber and Careem faced heavy criticism in Egypt at the beginning of 2016 by local taxi drivers for operating without official taxi licenses. Taxi drivers organized several protests and sit-ins demanding that the Egyptian government intervene to halt the activities of the TNCs. A committee was organized by the Egyptian government to assess the complaints of the protesting taxi drivers and standardize taxi services in Egypt. They ruled in favor of the TNCs, ensuring that they can operate legally and provided legal protection for the TNC drivers who had been facing attacks by both state police and angry taxi drivers. Data breach In January, 2018, Careem discovered data on more than 14 million riders and 558,800 drivers were breached. The