Oman’s eMushrif Acquires Egyptian Edtech Startup Tareeqi
Oman-based IoT-enabled mobility startup, eMushrif, has acquired Tareeqi, a Cairo-based Edtech startup, for an undisclosed amount.
This acquisition is a continuation of eMushrif’s regional expansion plans, following its acquisition of MyRoute, a Kuwaiti startup specializing in bus tracking applications. This deal gave eMushrif the leverage to offer its services within the Kuwaiti market.
Established in 2016, eMushrif utilizes IoT to develop solutions to monitor the safety of children in school buses. Over the years, eMushriff has been able to swiftly convert conventional school buses into smart and safe school buses. In December 2020, the startup secured a $2.3 million Series A investment led by Oman-based IDO Investments, to enable it to expand into other markets and improve its product offering.
Founded by Alfarouk Saleh and Mohamed Monier in 2018, Tareeqi uses an application to track schools, universities, and the bus fleets of institutions in Egypt and the MENA region. The app does not require the installation of any expensive GPS devices. This new deal will see Alfarouk Saleh and Mohamed Monier manage the expansion of eMushrif in the Egyptian market.
Adnan Al-Shuaili, CEO of eMushrif, commented on the deal saying “The launch of our operations in Egypt is an exceptional opportunity for us in eMushrif. This bold step unlocks our ability to offer our products to various regional sectors looking for innovation and simplicity in their business processes. This acquisition offers us the proximity we need to the North African markets. This acquisition also offers us the unique opportunity of attracting outstanding talents in the technical field to build a team capable of achieving our strategic goals in technical expansion.”
Al Farouk Saleh, the CEO of Tareeqi expressed his excitement about the deal, adding that the deal will allow both startups to jointly solve the problems they are both interested in.
“Both companies try to make the daily bus trips easier for students, parents, school administrators, and bus drivers. Traditional school bus trips are full of delays and problems, and the hardest thing about them is that they are repeated daily.
Millions of people worldwide face those problems daily, which motivate us to work hard to reach more people and make their lives a little bit easier. The expansion of eMushrif in Egypt will help the company in increasing its technical capabilities through building a big tech team in Egypt which is famous for having strong and experienced technical talents.”
He added that the deal will also allow eMushrif to attract technical talent in the MENA region to support its expansion plans, “The expansion will also enable eMushrif to access the major business opportunities found in the Markets of North Africa. We like the dream of eMushrif of becoming the leader of the IoT sector in the MENA region, and we’ll do our best to help make this dream come true.”
eMushrif currently offers four products—Saar (school transport), Rased (quarantine violation tracker), Sahala (quarantine management), and Watad (attendance).
It has deployed over 200,000 devices across more than 1,000 smart vehicles, as per its website.