NearMotion, one of Saudi’s leading digital mapping and indoor navigation specialists, has received a follow-on investment from Wa’ed, the entrepreneurship arm of Aramco, to drive the company’s global expansion.
Based in Al Khobar, NearMotion provides mobile navigation tools that allow airports, hospitals, shopping malls, museums, theme parks and event stadiums to interact with thousands of visitors on the go, providing real-time information and services.
NearMotion’s technology is used by organizations such as Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare in Dhahran, Dallah Hospital in Riyadh and MediClinic Middle East in Dubai. In April, NearMotion received a SAR 1.2 million contract for digital mapping services at the Saudi Ministry of Education’s 200,000 square-meter headquarters in Riyadh.
Faisal Alferdos, the NearMotion founder and CEO, said the investment – Wa’ed’s second after an initial investment in 2016 – is timely and will help NearMotion provide its unique technology platform to more clients in the Gulf, and soon, worldwide.
“This second vote of confidence from Wa’ed is very welcome and comes at a good time for NearMotion,” Alferdos said. “We are seeing growing demand for our services regionally and this will help us take our business global.”
The market for digital indoor mapping and navigation services is booming in the Gulf, Alferdos said, as more and more hospitals and shopping malls are looking to add locational services in the Kingdom, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE.
By August, NearMotion plans to change its business model from the sale of enterprise software and hardware to a subscription-as-a-service model, which will allow NearMotion to sell businesses around the world access to its end-to-end platform.
Wassim Basrawi, the Wa’ed managing director, said the latest investment in NearMotion aims to drive its growth and help the Saudi start-up, which was founded in 2016, to transport its regional success to the global stage.
“We initially invested in NearMotion because its technology was unique and game-changing, and its success in the GCC has shown this,” Basrawi said. “With this second investment, we aim to help globalize this exciting Saudi success story.”
While the market for digital navigation is highly competitive, NearMotion is one of the few global indoor navigation specialists with a platform that provides a full end-to-end solution of location based-engagement, indoor mapping and digital navigation.
Through the use of GPS tracking and indoor tracking networks running on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) wireless communications, NearMotion helps users precisely navigate large buildings, shopping malls and stadiums, while giving facility operators useful data about consumer foot traffic to adjust services and set store rents.
© Press Release 2021
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