Dubai-based Logistics Startup AHOY Hopes to Redefine Last Mile Delivery

“Investors in the region are more suspicious than elsewhere, because a lot of MENA startups are copycats of things that worked in Europe or Silicon Valley,” Jamil Shinawi, co-founder of logistics and transport-tech startup AHOY, tells StartupScene. “Our proposition is completely, truly unique. Our team of 20 software engineers, some of whom are also GIS (geographic information system) specialists, built it from scratch.”

First founded in 2018 by serial entrepreneurs Jamil Shinawi, Gerard Sansoni, and Adel Samer, Dubai-based AHOY has just raised a seven-figure (AED) amount from a private investor for its pioneering last mile delivery service that it hopes will redefine mobility technology. 

“The smallest unit for cold transportation today is a van,” Shinawi explains on the current environmental and energy inefficiency of temperature-controlled transport. “We take it down to a half cubic metre. We enable more people to interact with one shipment, and we reduce the time.”

AHOY claims to be the first startup, globally, to provide micro-multimodal mobility with secure hot and cold supply chain logistics for last mile operations through its novel technology. It is also currently offering its core technology as a SaaS model to companies. “We offer deliveries with payment options, but also integrate with merchants on their check-out experiences, whether it’s on an app or a website. We have redesigned the check-out experience in a MENA-sensitive way with our own plug-ins, which the region didn’t really have before.”

The startup is currently operating its delivery services with three food related e-commerce companies, servicing a total of around 3,000 people across the UAE. Shinawi also explains their technology’s potential for providers with products that have short shelf-lives and are sensitive to transportation and storage conditions, such as farm-to-table services.

“A lot of new food couriers aren’t looking at things like cross-contamination. We need to be very safe, and that’s what we’ve been doing from day one to maintain food safety standards, like not transporting dairy where meat was previously transported.”