Egypt - Sogni Maak, a Sudan-based company that specializes in transportation solutions, has announced that it aims to attract $1m investments during 2023, as it plans to expand in a number of neighbouring countries, led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia.

The application for participatory transportation was launched during the year 2021 by the young entrepreneur, Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Fadl, with the aim of facing the challenges that the Sudanese transportation market suffers from and the lack of an organized or regular transportation network in about 18 Sudanese states.

Mohamed Ibrahim, founder and CEO of the Sogni Maak application, said that the application allows the user to share the journey that he will take in his car with other users, as the sharing trip allows the driver to add a trip on his way back and forth and share the trip with application users at competitive prices, which contributes to increasing the driver’s income. Savings and convenience are also for the users of the application, adding that the application aims to solve most of the problems that all parties to the transportation system in Sudan suffer from and owners of private cars with limited and medium incomes who do not have the opportunity to work with taxi applications for various reasons, including lack of time or to maintain the car or lack of conformity. The car is subject to the conditions of different taxi applications, which makes the application create a new concept for the interstate transportation and travel market, whether in Sudan or in the countries of the Middle East.

Regarding competition, Ibrahim described it as almost non-existent, as the first smart transportation application appeared in Sudan about 5 years ago and is only available in the capital, in addition to the availability of two other applications, so the market needs more of these applications, while Sogni Maak presents a new competitive advantage through the service The shared trip, where the owners of the shared road can request to share the ride with the car owner for a fee determined by the application, which contributes to increasing the driver’s income and comfort for the users of the application. The application also provides another service, which is the independent trip or the smart taxi.

He pointed out that Sogni Maak targets categories of taxi application drivers, as well as customers of taxi applications, users of public transportation, drivers traveling between cities and travel bus passengers, as well as category of car owners, as the application competes in providing competitive prices to drivers, with the customer not bearing the difference in this price, and at the same time it will be the lowest trip price for users compared to similar applications.

Ibrahim confirmed that the investments that have been pumped into the application so far are self-investments that amounted to more than $80,000 during the experimental phase, which met with great acceptance and success, as about 11,000 drivers downloaded the application, in addition to about 17,000 customers downloading it through the Google Play platform in Less than a month after its launch, the founder of the application added that he aspires to attract investments worth $1m during the current year 2023, aiming to use them in developing the application and expansion operations, in addition to advertising, marketing and the administrative part.

In the framework of supporting and empowering women, the application provides a “Princess” service that allows women to use their cars to work in the application to increase income, and provides them with the service of accompanying women only to provide more safety.

Ibrahim pointed out that creating a new market requires a lot of time and effort and an enormous and additional amount of marketing and promotion of the service in order for the new idea to be absorbed among the community, and this is one of the most important difficulties facing the work team.

He added that the application is available in Sudan, targeting expansion in the Egyptian, Saudi and Ethiopian markets during the next two years, according to their strategic plan to expand and spread.

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