plans and to price our offerings accordingly depends on ongoing innovation and the effectiveness of our data analysis, modeling and algorithms. As a result, we have made, and will continue to make, significant investments in research and development and technology in an effort to improve our platform and to attract and retain drivers and riders, expand the capabilities and scope of our offerings, and enhance our customer experience. We review and target our research and development activities on an ongoing basis based on the needs of our business. We believe that continued optimization of demand prediction, routing and pricing can improve our user base, utilization rates and customer experience, which we believe in turn can reduce inefficiency costs and improve our margins.
Our engineers and data scientists are critical to the success of our business and we will continue to invest in these areas. In addition, we will continue to dedicate significant resources to research and development efforts, focusing on continuing to improve our proprietary technology and developing innovative applications.
Our ability to operate in distinct geographic markets and our ability to expand into new markets.
Our capacity for continued growth and ability to achieve and maintain profitability depends in part on our ability to operate and compete effectively in different geographic markets. Each market is subject to distinct competitive and operational dynamics. These include our ability to offer more attractive transportation offerings than alternative options, our ability to efficiently attract and retain drivers and riders, ride length and the number of routes available on our platform, all of which affect our sales, results of operations and key business metrics. As a result, we may experience fluctuations in our results of operations due to the changing dynamics in the geographic markets where we operate.
Since our founding, we have been able to expand into new geographies and markets. Since 2017, we expanded our operations to more than 115 cities in over 20 countries (not including the countries of operation of Zeelo, a company which Swvl announced a definitive agreement to acquire in April 2022), with our core Retail offering available in select cities in Egypt, Kenya, Pakistan and Jordan. In January 2019, we commenced operations in Nairobi, Kenya. In the second half of 2019, we commenced operations in major cities in Pakistan, including Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi, and relocated our headquarters from Egypt to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In 2020 and 2021, we also launched TaaS offerings in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.
On August 18, 2021, we entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a controlling interest in Shotl, a mass transit platform that partners with municipalities and corporations to provide on-demand bus and van services in Europe, Latin America and the Asia Pacific region, which expanded our geographic footprint to 22 additional cities in 10 countries. The transaction closed on November 19, 2021.
On November 16, 2021, we entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a controlling interest in Viapool, a mass transit platform currently operating in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago, Chile. The transaction closed on January 14, 2022.
On March 24, 2022, we entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a controlling interest in door2door, a high-growth mobility operations platform that partners with municipalities, public transit operators, corporations, and automotive companies to optimize shared mobility solutions across Europe. The transaction closed on June 3, 2022.
On April 25, 2022, we announced a definitive agreement to acquire Volt Lines, a Turkey-based B2B and Transport as a Service mobility business. The acquisition builds on Swvl’s recent acquisitions of controlling stakes in Shotl and Viapool, acquisition of door2door and pending acquisition of Zeelo. The transaction closed on May 25, 2022.
On April 28, 2022, we announced a definitive agreement to acquire Zeelo, the UK’s largest smart bus platform and technology scale-up, measured by bookings. We believe joining forces with Zeelo provides a launchpad to rapidly land and expand business operations in three strategic developed markets including the UK, South Africa and the US with Zeelo’s seasoned team of over 160 staff across the globe, including 29 software engineers based out of Zeelo’s R&D hub in Barcelona.
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