Ride-sharing service RushOwl raises $10 M Series A funding from Gobi Partners
The Singapore-based ride-sharing service RushOwl, which uses its in-house artificial intelligence (AI) technology to cut carbon emissions, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by the pan-Asian venture capital firm Gobi Partners.
In a statement released on Wednesday, RushOwl announced that Gobi’s investment partner for this funding round is the Hong Kong Investment Corporation Limited (HKIC), a patient capital organization that is fully owned by the Hong Kong government and committed to investing for the future of Hong Kong by promoting new economic growth drivers for Hong Kong, such as innovation and sustainability.
The statement claims that RushOwl is actively growing its business operations in Singapore, India, and Hong Kong, where it currently offers on-demand shuttle service to support the development of smart mobility in the cities.
The money will be used by the company to enter new markets, such as Malaysia, South Korea, and the Philippines.
Additionally, it intends to establish a research and development (R&D) facility in Malaysia.
Along with expanding its market reach, RushOwl plans to use its Series A funding to expand its business-to-business (B2B) sales force, forming important alliances with fleet partners, and licensing RushOS to them.
“We saw in both developing and mature cities that when governments want to increase their land usage to include more companies and amenities to benefit people, accessibility continues to be a big problem because they cannot immediately create a public transport offering without spending billions of dollars,
“The idea of creating a free-flowing public transportation system appealed to us,” said Shin Ng, Chief Executive Officer of Rushowl.
Shin Ng, the CEO, Songyan Ho, the CTO, and Kris Lee, the COO, founded RushOwl in 2018. The company collaborates with businesses and educational institutions.
Over 4,000 trips are handled every day by the platform, which has powered over 1.5 million rides to date.
The main technology of RushOwl is RushOS, a dynamic routing algorithm based on artificial intelligence that aggregates trip requests for collective, carbon-efficient travel.
RushOwl’s emphasis on preparing its fleet software for autonomous vehicles with an emphasis on optimal asset utilization for sustainable return of investment (ROI) is one of the main ways that its algorithms differ from those of other mobility providers.
The platform’s mobile app, RushTrail, currently has 250,000 users, primarily employees and students, who commute 30% faster than they would with public transportation.
By using less mileage and replacing more than three cars on each shared trip, RushOwl also reduces carbon emissions by 50%.
Asia Pacific Breweries, CBRE, and Singapore’s Ministry of Education are some of the company’s main partners.
With contracts that are at least 24 months long, the company has managed to secure eight-figure annual contracted revenues.
Customers can cut expenses and emissions by using RushOwl’s dynamic, data-driven shuttle service instead of more conventional fixed-fleet providers.
Gobi Partners strengthened the cross-border potential of RushOwl’s growth strategy by investing through three of its managed funds in Malaysia and Hong Kong.
