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Top 10 most funded mobility-tech startups in MENA region

Car-sharing firm ekar operates across seven cities with a fleet of 2,300 vehicles and 250,000 users in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. (Supplied)
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Updated 05 October 2022
Nour El-Shaeri
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Top 10 most funded mobility-tech startups in MENA region

  • After producing several unicorns, the shared mobility market is set to expand
Updated 05 October 2022
Nour El-Shaeri

CAIRO: The shared mobility technology landscape, which includes ride-sharing, car-renting and taxi-ordering models, has been on the rise in the Middle East and North African region ever since global players such as Uber and Lyft rode a wave of success in the business.

After producing several unicorns, the shared mobility market in the region is set to expand with a compound annual growth rate of 18.4 percent from 2022 to 2030 as the annual market is predicted to witness a 16.9 percent increase, according to Grand View Research Inc.

Arab News has compiled a list of the 10 most funded mobility-tech startups from the MENA region.

1. Careem

Total funding: $771.7 million

Founders: Mudassir Sheikha and Magnus Olsson

Investors: Alpha Partners, Arzan Venture Capital, BECO Capital, Bild Alternative Investment, Coatue Management and 22 others

Headquarters: UAE

Recognized to be the Middle East’s first unicorn startup, Careem has transformed the ride-hailing sector in the region, attracting global competition and acquisitions to the industry.

The company first started as a car-booking app. It later entered the food delivery space and now operates as a super app.

Founded in 2012, Careem is the second most funded startup in the region. It obtained unicorn status in 2018 and was later acquired by global ride-hailing giant Uber for $3.1 billion in 2020.

2. Swvl

Total funding: $264 million

Founders: Mostafa Kandil, Mahmoud Nouh and Ahmed Sabbah

Investors: BECO Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, MSA Capital, Oman Technology Fund, Arzan Venture Capital, Sawari Ventures, VNV Global, Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital and others

Headquarters: Founded in Egypt, based in the UAE

Founded in 2017, Swvl is a tech-enabled mass transit solutions provider offering intercity, intracity, business-to-business and business-to-government transportation services.

The company is another unicorn founded in the MENA region, also listed on the Nasdaq.

Currently operating in 20 countries across four continents, Swvl went public after it completed a merger with special purpose acquisition company Queens Gambit Growth Capital and was valued at $1.5 billion in March 2022.

3. Yassir

Total funding: $43 million

Founders: Noureddine Tayebi and El-Mahdi Yettou

Investors: Y Combinator, P1 Ventures, French Partners, ACE & Co., Venture Souq, WndrCo, DN Capital, Kismet Capital, Spike ventures, Quiet Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, FJ Labs, Venture Souq, Nellore Capital, Moving Capital and other investors

Headquarters: Algeria

Established in 2017, Yassir offers on-demand services such as ride-hailing and last-mile delivery in 25 cities across Algeria, Canada, France, Morocco and Tunisia, with over 3 million users.

The startup started as a ride-sharing platform and later became a super app adding last-mile delivery and financial services for its users.

The company raised $30 million in series A funding in June 2021 in a bid to expand into Western Africa and Europe in 2022.

4. ekar

Total funding: $34 million

Founder: Vilhelm Hedberg

Investors: Polymath Venture and other investors

Headquarters: UAE

Founded in 2016, ekar offers on-demand access to a network of car-share, subscription leasing vehicles and other mobility options, including peer-to-peer rentals.

Operating across seven cities with a fleet of 2,300 vehicles and 250,000 users in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the company is one of the region’s first fully contactless car-sharing apps.

The company raised $17.5 million in series B funding in 2019, announced its launch in Thailand in 2022 and plans to expand into Malaysia, Turkey and Egypt later in the year.

5. KOI Ride

Total funding: $18 million

Founders: Ghassan Muradwij and Riyaz Alambath

Investors: Undisclosed

Headquarters: UAE

KOI Ride is a B2B ride-hailing service startup that offers end-to-end ground transport services and connects online booking portals with licensed transportation providers.

Established in 2015, the company offers its services in over 30 countries. In June 2022, KOI Ride raised $3 million in an investment round to strengthen its presence in existing markets.

6. Udrive

Total funding: $17.3 million

Founders: Nicholas Watson and Hasib Khan

Investors: Cultiv8 and Oman Holding International

Headquarters: UAE

Another car rental app Udrive provides a pay-per-minute rental service for UAE residents and tourists, clocking in over 2 million trips.

Founded in 2016, the company allows users to pick up a car from any location available and is then returned to any parking location in the same city.

In its latest funding round, Udrive raised $5 million to support its plans to expand in the Middle East and enhance its technology.

7. Fenix

Total funding: $5 million

Founders: Jaideep Dhanoa and IQ Sayed

Investors: Emkan Capital and Panthera Capital Ventures

Headquarters: UAE

Established in November 2020, Fenix provides a different kind of mobility using electric scooters on a subscription-based service.

Founded by two ex-Careem executives, the company has one of the largest electric vehicle fleets in the region as it operates in four cities.

In 2021, the company raised a $5 million seed funding to support its goals to become the first national micro-mobility operator in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

8. Telgani

Total funding: $4.2 million

Founder: Abdulkader Almkinzy

Investors: 500 Startups, Saudi Venture Capital Co., Impact46 and others

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia

A car rental platform, Telgani allows users to rent a car through its mobile app that is then delivered to their doorstep.

Founded in 2018, the company also enables users to pick the car and the location they want to travel to and provides them with nearby options.

In November 2021, Telgani secured a $2.5 million pre-series A funding led by Saudi venture capital firm, Impact46.

9. Ousta

Total funding: $3.1 million

Founder: Nader El-Batrawi

Investors: Angel investors

Headquarters: Egypt

Founded in 2016, Ousta is Egypt’s first local ride-sharing application that was established to compete with ride-hailing companies Uber and Careem.

The company did not disclose any of its operations to the media since its fundraising of $1.5 million in 2016.

10. Urent

Total funding: $1.5 million

Founder: Omar Al-Ashi

Investors: Viacheslav Zhuravlev

Headquarters: UAE

Urent, another player in the car rental space, is a UAE-based platform aiming to revolutionize the car rental industry in the region.

The company offers a peer-to-peer vehicle sharing platform, creating a whole community based on trust.

It is dubbed to be the Airbnb for cars.

In June 2019, Urent raised seed funding and, in 2020, raised an undisclosed pre-series A funding, and will be operating globally by Q4 2023.

Topics: startups MENA

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Saudi Arabia likely to meet tourism targets ahead of 2030, says top official

Updated 7 sec ago
Nadin Hassan
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Saudi Arabia likely to meet tourism targets ahead of 2030, says top official

Updated 7 sec ago
Nadin Hassan

RIYADH: Based on Saudi Arabia’s extraordinary achievements in the tourism sector, the Kingdom is likely to achieve its targets ahead of 2030, said a top tourism official. 

During a panel at the Future Hospitality Summit held in Riyadh, Gloria Manzo, chief special adviser at the Ministry of Tourism, likened Saudi Arabia’s approach toward the development of the sector to the private sector with clear goals with key performance indicators reviewed quarterly.

She added: “We have goals, we have quarterly meetings that review our KPIs quarterly. You better be on the plan and if not, you have to explain why, so most likely it will achieve those numbers, before 2030. Absolutely!.”

Manzo noted that increasing the target indicates that Saudi Arabia is progressing faster than expected, which reflects a positive momentum in achieving tourism goals.

She said for Saudi Arabia “the sky is the limit.”  The development process in the Kingdom, she added, is supported by unprecedented levels of government investment.

“What the government is doing in this country, there’s no other example in the world. I have never seen something like this in my 30 years of career,” the official said.

She also highlighted challenges facing the tourism sector such as geopolitical issues and weather-related crises, which can disrupt operations.

The official identified the development of human resources for the sector as a challenge for which the government is taking several measures.

“We wish we could do that faster. The ministry is training Saudis abroad. We announced a (training) academy. We’re partnering with universities here. That is very important, but it will be wonderful if we can train them faster. The private sector is also helping us to train these Saudis,” she said.

Manzo also expressed optimism about more Saudi women joining the tourism industry. 

The official said interestingly the Saudi government “moves faster than the private sector” unlike any other country in the world where the latter tends to act quicker. She said small and medium enterprises require more support to keep pace with the ongoing development in the sector.

“I would say the SMEs need more support, and of course, we wish we can support them so that they can accelerate in this transition,” Manzo added.

“We’re working with them. We have a plan and the ecosystem is very structured,” the tourism official said.

Topics: FHS24

Saudi chemicals giant SABIC targeting net zero by 2050, CEO says

Abdulrahman Al-Fageeh (R), CEO of the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation.
Updated 29 April 2024
Sara Al-Shurafa
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Saudi chemicals giant SABIC targeting net zero by 2050, CEO says

  • SABIC aims to convert 1 million tons of waste into feedstock for the petrochemical industry by 2030, Al-Fageeh said
Updated 29 April 2024
Sara Al-Shurafa

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s top chemicals company is turning to circular economy solutions to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and advance the Kingdom’s net-zero agenda, its CEO has said.

Abdulrahman Al-Fageeh, CEO of the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, was speaking at the “Demand for Energy ... Transforming Costs into Gains” panel during the special meeting of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh.

SABIC aims to convert 1 million tons of waste into feedstock for the petrochemical industry by 2030, he said.

The circular carbon economy has helped the chemicals sector expand its investment horizon since 2020, he added.

Al-Fageeh said that SABIC marked achievements in energy efficiency and reduced its carbon footprint at the end of 2023 by 12.74 percent. The company is targeting carbon neutrality by 2050.

SABIC has also adopted alternative energy from plastic waste, seeking to produce 1 million tons of sustainably sourced chemicals by 2030.

Energy efficiency

Al-Fageeh said that his company had started sustainability programs at an early stage, improved reliability, developed 90 initiatives and projects, and closed a number of sites due to ineffectiveness.

In 2023, SABIC had more than 200 patents, 40 percent of which related to sustainability in energy efficiency.

Topics: WEF Riyadh SABIC Net Zero

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Concierge robots set to become reality in the hospitality sector 

Updated 29 April 2024
Reina Takla
Nour El-Shaeri
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Concierge robots set to become reality in the hospitality sector 

Updated 29 April 2024
Reina Takla Nour El-Shaeri

RIYADH: A personal robot concierge is set to become a reality as a new wave of technological innovation takes the spotlight during the Future Hospitality Summit in Riyadh. 

In an interview with Arab News during the event, Janet Adams, chief operating officer of global artificial intelligence company SingularityNET, shared details about a new humanoid robot expected to revolutionize the hospitality sector. 

“One of our projects which we are pioneering right now is the development of a new class of humanoid robots specifically designed for the service industries,” Adam told Arab News. 

“Imagine going to stay in a hotel where you’ve connected with your robot before you go there. They know everything you want. They can greet you at the door because you’ve been chatting as an avatar,” she said. 

“And then after you leave, they can stay in touch with you and they can be like a loyalty ambassador, robotic avatar, friend for life who understands your needs, who understands what you enjoy, who makes everything perfect for you in your stay in the hospitality industry,” Adams added. 

Janet Adams, chief operating officer of global artificial intelligence company SingularityNET. AN photo by Huda Bashatah

She further explained that the development, known as the Mind Children project, will roll out its pilot in early 2025. 

Furthermore, Adams shared that the company is working on a new breed of technological advancement for AI in language models in the Middle East. 

The company is working with Zarqa, a Middle Eastern AI firm part of SingularityNET’s ecosystem, to significantly improve AI language models.

 “What we’re doing is we’re taking the best of today’s large language model technology, and we’re infusing it with the best of tomorrow’s artificial general intelligence technology, because we’re leaders in the field of artificial general intelligence,” Adams explained. 

“And sometime within the next 12 to 24 months, we expect to see enormous breakthroughs where the limitations of today’s language models are overcome, where we can bring human level reasoning or human style reasoning into our robots and therefore give them the capability to be creative, to understand their environment, to really, truly contribute as a, for example, to hospitality services,” she added. 

During the event, SingularityNET also showcased Desdemona, a humanoid robot and the lead vocalist of the Jam Galaxy Band. 

“She runs up a huge array of advanced artificial intelligence models. She’s working with vision, with speech processing. We work with toxicity filters. We work with emotion recognition, facial recognition. We have a variety of AI models, including Markov decision-making and generative adversarial networks,” she explained.  

“And a bunch of the most advanced AI that’s available on the planet. Together. All work together in this, in what looks like a seamless operation of multiple modules working together. She’s truly a highly advanced miracle of modern AI,” Adams added. 

Topics: FHS24

Brazilian energy official from Riyadh: ‘We are on our way to join OPEC+’

Secretary of Oil, Gas and Biofuels at Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy Pietro Mendes attends WEF special meeting in Riyadh.
Updated 29 April 2024
Sara Al-Shurafa
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Brazilian energy official from Riyadh: ‘We are on our way to join OPEC+’

  • Mendes stressed the importance of South-South cooperation, noting his country’s relationship with Egypt and Saudi Arabia
Updated 29 April 2024
Sara Al-Shurafa

RIYADH: Pietro Mendes, Secretary of Oil, Gas and Biofuels at Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy, confirmed on Monday that his country is on its way to joining the OPEC+ alliance.

Mendes’ announcement came during his participation in a session titled “Energy Demand: Transforming Costs into Profits” during the special meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Riyadh.

Brazil ranks ninth in the world in oil production at 3.25 million barrels per day.

“Brazil is joining OPEC+. So, the idea is to create cooperation because there (are) differences between regions and we don’t have just one single solution that comes from us or a union; we need to recognize all the solutions,” the Brazilian official said, adding while his country continues to produce oil and gas, it is simultaneously increasing reliance on renewable energies and adopting solutions to reduce emissions.

Mendes stressed the importance of South-South cooperation, noting his country’s relationship with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where several initiatives are being developed for cooperation in biofuels and technology, including artificial intelligence, is being adopted to reduce carbon emissions.

Topics: WEF Riyadh Brazil OPEC+

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‘Headquarters of your life’ coming to Saudi Arabia, says Wyndham Hotels regional president

Updated 29 April 2024
Reina Takla
MIGUEL HADCHITY 
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‘Headquarters of your life’ coming to Saudi Arabia, says Wyndham Hotels regional president

Updated 29 April 2024
Reina Takla MIGUEL HADCHITY 

RIYADH: HQ, the new hospitality brand launched by Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and renowned hotelier Sam Nazarian, is set to arrive in Saudi Arabia by the end of 2025, Arab News has been told.

Dimitris Manikis, president of Europe, the Middle East, Eurasia and Africa, at the hospitality group, unveiled the company’s ambitious plans for the Kingdom – including the launch of HQ – at the Future Hospitality Summit in Riyadh.

Speaking to Arab News, Manikis shared insights into Wyndham’s steadfast commitment to Saudi Arabia’s flourishing hospitality landscape, saying: “We are very serious and very bullish about our presence in the Kingdom.”

He added: “We’re really excited to bring this new brand into Saudi Arabia as well, because it’s about smart luxury. It’s about F&B (food and beverage), entertainment, music, and it’s about smart hospitality as well.”

Manikis went on to say: “In the next 18 months, you’re going to have the first HQ brand in Saudi Arabia.”

Citing Nazarian’s track record of success with brands like Mondrian, Delano, and SLS, Manikis said: “Sam is notoriously famous for bringing up new concepts and ideas. So when I asked him:  ‘What exactly is HQ and why would you call it brand HQ?’, he said: ‘I want the brand to be the headquarters of your life.’”

The President added: “I have no doubt whatsoever that HQ will be an amazing brand to grow in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in particular.”

Manikis reflected on Wyndham's impressive footprint across the Kingdom, which includes a robust pipeline of 20 upcoming projects. Notable among these ventures are the imminent openings of the Ramada hotels.

Additionally, the introduction of Wyndham Garden last year marked a significant milestone in the company’s strategic expansion efforts.

The optimism surrounding Saudi Arabia’s tourism prospects was palpable in Manikis’ remarks, citing the Kingdom’s remarkable achievement of surpassing the Vision 2030 tourism target of 100 million visitors in 2023.

“The bar has gone to 150 million tourists,” he remarked, highlighting Saudi Arabia’s accelerated progress towards becoming a global tourism destination. 

However, he cautioned against neglecting the crucial role of infrastructure development in sustaining this growth momentum.

“Infrastructure, planes, airports, railways, roads, highways,” Manikis said, stressing the necessity of robust infrastructure to accommodate the influx of tourists. 

Commending the government’s proactive measures, including the launch of a new airline and airport expansions, he expressed confidence in Saudi Arabia’s readiness to meet escalating demand.

“I do believe that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is actually going to fulfill the promise. And they're going to have an amazing Expo (2030). I don't think there's going to be any doubt about that,” he said.

As anticipation mounts for marquee events like the Expo and the FIFA World Cup in 2034, Manikis underscored the importance of post-event planning. 

“It's not just about the event, it’s about what you do after,” he cautioned, advocating for sustainable strategies to leverage event infrastructure effectively beyond the festivities.

In addition to the HQ brand, Wyndham is poised to capitalize on the burgeoning extended stay segment. 

“We are very bullish on extended stay,” Manikis stated, recognizing its potential to cater to diverse clientele, including families, business travelers, and digital nomads.

He added: “We added 11 beautiful luxury, extended stay products. And hopefully we’re going to extend the extended stay concept here in the Kingdom as well.”

Topics: FHS24

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