Tenderd raises $5.8 million
Vehicle rental startups have become quite the norm these days, with UDrive raising $5 million to expand its fleet and a new startup, Urent, launching within the space at the end of July.
Giving insight into the trend against vehicle ownership, Tenderd, a heavy equipment rental marketplace for the construction industry in the MENA region, announced the region’s largest seed funding round of $5.8 million. The Y Combinator startup was one of the first from the region to be accepted into the accelerator.
This saw the funding round being led by high profile San Francisco and international investors. Y Combinator and BECO led the round along with Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Paul Buchheit, Justin Mateen, Matt Mickiewicz, VentureSouq, SOMA, Dynamo, and Global Founders Capital.
The idea for the startup arose out of a personal issue that founder Arjun Mohan faced when finding equipment for his family’s construction business. Soon after launching Tenderd 12 months ago, he joined Y Combinator to boost the startup’s growth.
The Middle East and Africa construction market is worth $635 billion, and is the fastest growing market at 9% CAGR, while $5.1 trillion Asia-Pacific market is the largest globally, growing at 6.3% CAGR.
The startup is the next best example to show how local market expertise can boost growth and give tough competition to others.
Tenderd has grown to become the largest heavy equipment rental marketplace in MENA. The equipment’s artificial intelligence tracking system is used by contractors to increase overall equipment productivity as well as regulate emissions to run the equipment more sustainably.
Contractors can also rent their idle equipment through Tenderd and maximize their fleet utilisation.
Leveraging local knowledge with digital expertise, Tenderd aims to use their seed capital to streamline the equipment rental process as well as expand to neighbouring strategic markets.
