Profile of Udrive
Date started: March 2016
Founder: Hasib Khan
Based: Dubai
Employees: 40
Amount raised (to date): $3.25m – $750,000 seed funding in 2017 and a Seed round of $2.5m last year. Raised $1.3m from Eureeca investors in January 2021 as part of a Series A round with a $5m target.
Covid-19 threw up all sorts of challenges to businesses last year – from restaurants that couldn’t open their doors to manufacturers struggling to source parts.
For Udrive’s founder Hasib Khan, the biggest challenge was one of funding. The car-sharing start-up, which was operating a fleet of more than 570 vehicles, was in the midst of its Series A round when the pandemic struck.
“We had millions of dollars committed,” he says. “We had signed commitments and it all blew up because of Covid. So we were stood there with nothing.”
Not only had it lost funding, but its revenue also dried up as movement restrictions imposed to stop the spread of Covid-19 kept its fleet of vehicles off the road.
The company acted quickly. Managing director Nicholas Watson had begun to realise the potential scale of the problem in late January last year after listening to a macroeconomics podcast spelling out potential scenarios.
Having worked at an events business whose failure to act decisively in the wake of the global financial crisis led to its undoing, Mr Watson flagged the importance of swift action to Mr Khan.
“If revenue starts dropping, because revenue always drops faster than costs, then [we needed to] be prepared to either fund the deficit or start making some very hard decisions quickly,” Mr Watson says.
Making people redundant was difficult, especially for a start-up, but with no immediate sources of capital, it was faced with no other choice.
“Because people are going to want a company to go back to,” Mr Watson says.
As soon as the first of the 12-hour sterilisation periods began in late March, Udrive sent force majeure letters to suppliers explaining the company may not be able to meet some of its payments on time.
Plans to scale back its fleet by handing vehicles back to suppliers were also hampered once a 24-hour sterilisation period was introduced in Dubai, meaning drivers could not go out to collect cars.
“We started losing contact with some of the cars after about seven days because the batteries started dying. We assumed where the cars were after seven days, they would be there two months later when we could get back to them. And they were all there,” Mr Watson says.
Revenue was brought back to life one car at a time, with the dust cleaned off vehicles, batteries jump-started and tyres re-inflated.
Udrive also had to balance the need to get cars back on the road to earn money with returning unwanted vehicles to suppliers. The company initially cut its fleet by almost two-thirds to 200 and it took about six weeks to get them all back on the road.
“By mid-June we were at 75 cars and by mid-July we were at full capacity of what was left after the handbacks,” Mr Watson says.
Yet Udrive has proved to be just as resilient as its founder Mr Khan, who was born in Afghanistan but whose family fled to Germany when he was still a baby. He grew up in Hamburg, where his father operated a food business. There, Mr Khan began trading cars at the age of 16.
“I bought cars for €500-€1,000 and sold them again for €200-€300 profit.”
He then started a showroom under the wing of the family business, but by the age of 20 he returned to Afghanistan with a desire to run his own business.
Mr Khan quickly managed to build a company delivering food to army bases across the country, which eventually morphed into a transportation business employing 400 people and led to him opening an office in Dubai in 2011. Three years later, he began a car rental company in the emirate, but after quickly letting out his entire fleet, he started thinking about ways to digitise and improve the model, leading to the birth of Udrive in 2016.
The key difference between Udrive and traditional car rental services is the technology. Cars are fitted with an Internet of Things device that can remotely open, lock, monitor and disable car use. Udrive initially used technology from Germany but replaced this with its own system in 2019.
The kit allows the company to offer short-term car rental services without the need to take a hefty deposit from customers, as traditional car rental companies often do. Users provide their Emirates ID, driving licence and credit card details, and cars can be hired per kilometre, by the hour, or through an all-in daily Dh99 rate that includes fuel, insurance and parking. A subscription service is also in the pipeline.
Demand bounced back strongly after last year’s disruptions, leading the company to introduce another 75 cars in September. Even now, Udrive’s ‘demand problem’ is that it exceeds supply, with utilisation rates higher than in the pre-Covid era, Mr Watson says.
“This is why we’re really positive about 2021 – as long as there are no more lockdowns or anything – that we’ll be able to put another 200 cars on the road and not think twice about it, which is what we’re planning over the next couple of months.”
The business is also much leaner than it was. It employs about 40 staff, down from 85 at the beginning of last year. It spent precious capital last year on development, automating manual processes for collecting Salik and speeding fines, which also reduced the likelihood of non-payment. It is also currently working on route visualisation to create algorithms to more efficiently cater to demand.
Udrive also recommenced fundraising. It secured $2.5m in a Seed+ round last year and in January, the company raised $1.3 million from Eureeca – the Dubai-based equity crowdfunding platform. It achieved its target within 48 hours, with the equity offered part of a wider $5m funding round valuing the company at $15m. This is about half of its pre-Covid valuation, as revenue is also lower.
“The difference is we have substantial value behind it. We are way more profitable on our unit economics now than we were pre-Covid,” says Mr Watson. He also expects revenue to ramp up substantially as more cars are reintroduced in the coming months.
The funding is also being used to expand including a push into Saudi Arabia and Turkey and to broaden the platform’s offer.
“We operate our own fleet right now but in the future, very soon this year, we are taking other people’s cars, putting them on the platform and taking a percentage of their revenue. And after that, we start taking your car, putting it on the platform, you rent it and you make money – like Airbnb,” Mr Watson says.
Q&A with Hasib Khan, founder and chief executive, Udrive
What other successful start-up do you wish you’d started?
An on-demand grocery platform is something that I really like because it is including transportation, mobility [and] food – everything that I did [previously]. That was something I would have really liked to do because [it is] something I could have boosted a lot more because of my experience. I had to pay a lot for learnings that I had in business.
What new skills have you learned since starting the business?
Growing a business in a way you can replace yourself. And I learned this over the course of getting to know Nic. We decided in the very beginning to say any business we would work on together, we would build in a way that we could scale the teams, scale the business but also outgrow ourselves with the business.
If you could do it all differently what would you change?
I would have on-boarded Nic much earlier into the business than in [July] 2019.
Where do you see the business in five years?
We are going to be a platform that will have lots of mobility options on demand. And we’re going to be all over the region. And potentially outside the region.
PROFILE OF CURE.FIT
Started: July 2016
Founders: Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori
Based: Bangalore, India
Sector: Health & wellness
Size: 500 employees
Investment: $250 million
Investors: Accel, Oaktree Capital (US); Chiratae Ventures, Epiq Capital, Innoven Capital, Kalaari Capital, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Piramal Group’s Anand Piramal, Pratithi Investment Trust, Ratan Tata (India); and Unilever Ventures (Unilever’s global venture capital arm)
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Key recommendations
- Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
- Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
- Explore wider powers for judges to punish offenders by blocking them from attending football matches, banning them from driving or travelling abroad through an expansion of ‘ancillary orders’.
- More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
'My Son'
Director: Christian Carion
Starring: James McAvoy, Claire Foy, Tom Cullen, Gary Lewis
Rating: 2/5
RACECARD
6pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-1 – Group 1 (PA) $50,000 (Dirt) 1,600m
6.35pm: Festival City Stakes – Conditions (TB) $60,000 (D) 1,200m
7.10pm: Dubai Racing Club Classic – Listed (TB) $100,000 (Turf) 2,410m
7.45pm: Jumeirah Classic Trial – Conditions (TB) $150,000 (T) 1,400m
8.20pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-1 – Group 2 (TB) $250,000 (D) 1,600m
8.55pm: Cape Verdi – Group 2 (TB) $180,000 (T) 1,600m
9.30pm: Dubai Dash – Listed (TB) $100,000 (T) 1,000m
Tank warfare
Lt Gen Erik Petersen, deputy chief of programs, US Army, has argued it took a “three decade holiday” on modernising tanks.
“There clearly remains a significant armoured heavy ground manoeuvre threat in this world and maintaining a world class armoured force is absolutely vital,” the general said in London last week.
“We are developing next generation capabilities to compete with and deter adversaries to prevent opportunism or miscalculation, and, if necessary, defeat any foe decisively.”
'The Sky is Everywhere'
Director:Josephine Decker
Stars:Grace Kaufman, Pico Alexander, Jacques Colimon
Rating:2/5
The specs
Engine: 4-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission: nine-speed
Power: 542bhp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: Dh848,000
On sale: now
Founders: Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, Turki Bin Zarah and Abdulmohsen Albabtain.
Based: Riyadh
Offices: UAE, Vietnam and Germany
Founded: September, 2020
Number of employees: 70
Sector: FinTech, online payment solutions
Funding to date: $116m in two funding rounds
Investors: Checkout.com, Impact46, Vision Ventures, Wealth Well, Seedra, Khwarizmi, Hala Ventures, Nama Ventures and family offices
Washmen Profile
Date Started: May 2015
Founders: Rami Shaar and Jad Halaoui
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Laundry
Employees: 170
Funding: about $8m
Funders: Addventure, B&Y Partners, Clara Ventures, Cedar Mundi Partners, Henkel Ventures
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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Citizenship-by-investment programmes
United Kingdom
The UK offers three programmes for residency. The UK Overseas Business Representative Visa lets you open an overseas branch office of your existing company in the country at no extra investment. For the UK Tier 1 Innovator Visa, you are required to invest £50,000 (Dh238,000) into a business. You can also get a UK Tier 1 Investor Visa if you invest £2 million, £5m or £10m (the higher the investment, the sooner you obtain your permanent residency).
All UK residency visas get approved in 90 to 120 days and are valid for 3 years. After 3 years, the applicant can apply for extension of another 2 years. Once they have lived in the UK for a minimum of 6 months every year, they are eligible to apply for permanent residency (called Indefinite Leave to Remain). After one year of ILR, the applicant can apply for UK passport.
The Caribbean
Depending on the country, the investment amount starts from $100,000 (Dh367,250) and can go up to $400,000 in real estate. From the date of purchase, it will take between four to five months to receive a passport.
Portugal
The investment amount ranges from €350,000 to €500,000 (Dh1.5m to Dh2.16m) in real estate. From the date of purchase, it will take a maximum of six months to receive a Golden Visa. Applicants can apply for permanent residency after five years and Portuguese citizenship after six years.
“Among European countries with residency programmes, Portugal has been the most popular because it offers the most cost-effective programme to eventually acquire citizenship of the European Union without ever residing in Portugal,” states Veronica Cotdemiey of Citizenship Invest.
Greece
The real estate investment threshold to acquire residency for Greece is €250,000, making it the cheapest real estate residency visa scheme in Europe. You can apply for residency in four months and citizenship after seven years.
Spain
The real estate investment threshold to acquire residency for Spain is €500,000. You can apply for permanent residency after five years and citizenship after 10 years. It is not necessary to live in Spain to retain and renew the residency visa permit.
Cyprus
Cyprus offers the quickest route to citizenship of a European country in only six months. An investment of €2m in real estate is required, making it the highest priced programme in Europe.
Malta
The Malta citizenship by investment programme is lengthy and investors are required to contribute sums as donations to the Maltese government. The applicant must either contribute at least €650,000 to the National Development & Social Fund. Spouses and children are required to contribute €25,000; unmarried children between 18 and 25 and dependent parents must contribute €50,000 each.
The second step is to make an investment in property of at least €350,000 or enter a property rental contract for at least €16,000 per annum for five years. The third step is to invest at least €150,000 in bonds or shares approved by the Maltese government to be kept for at least five years.
Candidates must commit to a minimum physical presence in Malta before citizenship is granted. While you get residency in two months, you can apply for citizenship after a year.
Egypt
A one-year residency permit can be bought if you purchase property in Egypt worth $100,000. A three-year residency is available for those who invest $200,000 in property, and five years for those who purchase property worth $400,000.
Source: Citizenship Invest and Aqua Properties
MATCH INFO
Rugby World Cup (all times UAE)
Third-place play-off: New Zealand v Wales, Friday, 1pm
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Profile of MoneyFellows
Founder: Ahmed Wadi
Launched: 2016
Employees: 76
Financing stage: Series A ($4 million)
Investors: Partech, Sawari Ventures, 500 Startups, Dubai Angel Investors, Phoenician Fund
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Ferran Torres 65'
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
The five pillars of Islam
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Angela Bassett, Tina Fey
Directed by: Pete Doctor
Rating: 4 stars
Friday’s fixture
6.15pm: Al Wahda v Hatta
6.15pm: Al Dhafra v Ajman
9pm: Al Wasl v Baniyas
9pm: Fujairah v Sharjah
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The specs
Engine: Turbocharged four-cylinder 2.7-litre
Power: 325hp
Torque: 500Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh189,700
On sale: now
Profile of Udrive
Date started: March 2016
Founder: Hasib Khan
Based: Dubai
Employees: 40
Amount raised (to date): $3.25m – $750,000 seed funding in 2017 and a Seed round of $2.5m last year. Raised $1.3m from Eureeca investors in January 2021 as part of a Series A round with a $5m target.
