UAE start-up Tenderd joins World Economic Forum's Global Innovators Community

The company is the first from the Emirates to join a group of promising global start-ups chosen to help respond to major challenges facing the world

A Tenderd employee shows a machinery operator how an installed device monitors performance. Courtesy of Tenderd.

Online construction marketplace Tenderd has become the first UAE-based company invited to join the World Economic Forum’s Global Innovators Community.

The company will offer its support on two initiatives being worked on by members of the community – accelerating the impact of Internet of Things (IoT) technology and a circular economy action agenda for capital equipment.

The Global Innovators Community is a group of some of the world’s most promising start-ups offering technologies or business advancements that can have a broader impact on society.

Its members include US-based flying vehicle company Joby Aviation, UK-based genomic data analyser Congenica and India-based agricultural technology company MoooFarm, which uses sensors to monitor the health of cattle.

“We are thrilled to be using the UAE as a platform and engage on the global stage with policy and business leaders, to help initiate and guide sustainability and technology initiatives,” Arjun Mohan, founder and chief executive of Tenderd, said in a statement.

Tenderd offers companies the opportunity to lend or borrow construction machinery which it fits with telematics equipment to track how efficiently they are used. The company raised $5.8m in an initial funding round in late 2018 from Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Germany’s Rocket Internet and Dubai-based venture capital firm Beco Capital.

Tenderd will be part of a business advisory council on accelerating IoT use across the world.

The World Economic Forum has already run a pilot project in Brazil where IoT devices were used to help 120 small and medium-sized businesses improve their efficiency, sustainability and profitability. That programme is now being rolled out to other markets including Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, South Africa and Colombia.

The company will also provide data collected from its own IoT devices connected to machines registered on its platform and use machine learning methods to identify patterns and ways of improving utilisation.

Construction is responsible for some 25 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions, according to Tenderd. Improved data collection can help companies to track and regulate equipment emissions, the company said.