AHOY, a UAE-based logistics firm that has given same-day delivery to e-commerce enterprises in Saudi Arabia and the UAE since its founding in 2018, has raised $20 million.
During AHOY’s debut keynote event, the company revealed plans for a bridge funding round before the series A round to help it expedite its worldwide scale-up.
Between 2020 and 2021, AHOY grew 25 times in revenue, number of transactions, and even more in technology deployment and deliverables.
AHOY’s CEO and Co-Founder, Jamil Shinawi, says: “The adoption of AHOY technology across all mobility-related sectors opens up a world of possibilities. This year, AHOY hopes to deliver over 100 job opportunities in Dubai and Riyadh for highly educated software workers. We want to expand our research and development team in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as well as expand our footprint in foreign markets.”
AHOY employs tech-driven infrastructure to help businesses maximise mobility, and it plans to use its new capital to expand into African and Latin American markets.
They’re also developing ‘The Orchard,’ a pro bono startup studio that will give companies innovative technologies and an extensive support network.
Through its revolutionary technology, AHOY promises to be the first startup in the world to enable micro-multimodal mobility with safe hot and cold supply chain logistics for last-mile operations.
It presently provides its leading technology to businesses as a SaaS model.
On the existing environmental and energy inefficiencies of temperature-controlled transportation, Shinawi argues, “The smallest unit for cold transportation now is a van.” “We reduce it to half a cubic meter.” We increase the number of persons that can engage with a single cargo while decreasing the amount of time it takes.”
The firm is currently delivering to a total of 3,000 people across the UAE through three food-related e-commerce enterprises. Shinawi also discusses the potential of their technology for providers of farm-to-table services, which have products with short shelf lives and are susceptible to transportation and storage conditions.
Jamil Shinawi, the co-founder of logistics and transport-tech firm AHOY, said: “A lot of new food couriers don’t think about cross-contamination. We must be extremely cautious, and that is exactly what we have been doing since the beginning to ensure that food safety regulations are met, such as not shipping dairy where meat has previously been moved.
Investors in the region are more cautious than elsewhere because a lot of MENA startups are copycats of things that worked in Europe or Silicon Valley. What we’re offering is truly one-of-a-kind. It was constructed from the ground up by our team of 20 software developers, including some GIS (geographic information system) experts,” he added.
In addition, AHOY recently unveiled AHOY Movement Studio (AMS), a collection of software development tools (APIs, SDKs, and libraries) tailored for organisations to enable developers to create the best movement-related solutions.
