P2P car rental service Roamer is the latest mobility innovation in Pakistan

By Sib Kaifee


ISLAMABAD: An app-based, peer-to-peer (P2P), hourly car rental service, Roamer, which recently raised an undisclosed six-figure seed capital from its network of investors in Pakistan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States, says that Saudi venture capitalists want it to introduce the service in the Kingdom.

“We have spoken to people in Saudi Arabia and there are a couple of areas where we think people will be backing us in the near future. In fact, we have been approached by a couple of [Saudi] groups who would like us to launch our service in their country. So it’s something we look forward to in due course,” Roamer CEO Mohammed Hadi told Arab News during an interview at his company’s headquarters in Islamabad.

Launched in July 2018 and co-founded by technology specialist, Ali Moeen, and finance expert, Mohammed Hadi, the Islamabad-based startup, which seeks to introduce “new innovation in mobility,” claims to be filling the gap between the country’s ride-hailing transport networks and the fragmented, archaic and costly car rental companies which have not changed their business model in four decades.

Still in the stage of infancy, Roamer has over 50,000 registered users and more than 1,200 chauffeur-driven partner vehicles. Offering service in the capital city and neighboring Rawalpindi with nationwide travel price plans, Roamer expects to expand operations this year to Lahore and Karachi before targeting smaller Pakistani cities.

“What ride-hailing companies have done in this country and other emerging markets is phenomenal and offers a perfect solution for point A to B travel. However, challenges still remain in a country like Pakistan where you have 17 cars per 1000 people. There is a really broad space for operating. There are a lot of needs that people have that are under served with the current solutions and we feel that with our USP [unique selling proposition] which is flat hourly pricing, unlimited stops, and no fuel charges, we are giving people the power to use the car as their own for a certain period of time, in the city and out of the city,” Hadi said adding: “We think this is a complementary service to ride-hailing.”

The entrepreneurial duo plans to introduce self-drive vehicles in the future that are similar to the Zip Car service, though it will require serious capital, logistics, and security protocols apart from a number of other challenges in Pakistan’s largely cash-based society. Before hitting that milestone, however, Roamer wants to scale up the company’s chauffeur-driven car rental model nationwide and dip into regional markets.

“We would like to raise more money in the coming months. We have come to a point where we not only have the proof of concept, but we have also scaled it and now it’s time to accelerate it,” Hadi said, adding: “We’d like to accelerate it within Pakistan, and we would also look at other regional markets including the GCC.”