The company reached a milestone last month by providing one million protected trips. It has also successfully secured a Pre-Series A funding of US$1mn (RO384,500 approx) by a prominent group of Oman-based investors (Phaze Ventures, Oman Technology Fund-Wadi, Sparklabs Energy, Myrad Holding and Angels) and one Bahrain-based investor (Dividend Gate Capital).
The company is run by CEO Adnan al Shuaili, and is supported by Awadh al Shukaili, chief technology officer, and Issa al Shuaili, chief operating officer.
According to Adnan, the funding will help boost the company further to bring Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to transportation and logistics. This will create next-generation of safe and smart transportation in the sultanate and the region.
'The investment will help us focus more on the growth of eMushrif operations across mass production of IoT devices, new technologies, sales, marketing and research, regional markets, as well as strengthening the product offering to feature state-of-the-art technologies and services in other transportation sectors,' Adnan told Muscat Daily.
He explained how the company, since its inception, has enabled thousands of parents regain their trust in safe school transportation. 'We have served many schools in Oman and have received positive reviews from everyone.'
Issa said, 'In the past two years of operation, we have served 50 schools in Oman. 'Thousands of parents use our system every day which is installed on hundreds of buses across the country, and just last month, we completed one million protected trips.'
Explaining more on the system, Adnan said that eMushrif consists of sophisticated hardware and intelligent software that help schools and parents keep track of buses and students. 'We are also revolutionising commuting services in other verticals such as oil and gas by providing intelligent commuting management system,' he said.
Shukaili said, 'At this day and age, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence are becoming an important part of logistics. At eMushrif we solve real-life problems using these technologies and challenge.'
The eMushrif system is bringing IoT technology to school buses enabling automatic attendance marking, visual child check system and detection system to ensure no child is left on the school bus. The system also provides school administrations and parents with mobile apps to track buses and children along with important notifications.
'At eMushrif we solve real-life problems using these technologies and challenge our own solutions every single day to set the bar higher and keep our clients happy. The funding will help us more on that. We also thank Oman Technology Fund for the support as well as Al Raffd Fund which helped us start our business,' Adnan added.
He said that his company was grateful for the support and calls upon the Ministry of Education to support too. 'We approached the Ministry of Education for our services but they opted to use the international company. Our services are of great quality and cost-effective and moreover we need support as SMEs.'