Algerian mobility startup temtem is bringing car-pooling to the North Africa region via a partnership with French company Karos.
Founded in 2017 by Kamel Haddar and backed to the tune of US$4 million in VC funding last year, temtem assists its 500,000 customers with its ride-sharing service.
It is now rolling out a car-pooling service in partnership with Karos, the French leader in home-to-work car-pooling. The company is expanding internationally for the first time by teaming up with temtem.
The Karos ride-sharing app, adapted to the Algerian market and launched by temtem, made its first appearance on February 15 and already has more than 20,000 users. Karos will also be applying its French business model by launching Karos Entreprises, which helps companies optimise the daily mobility of their Algerian employees.
“Urban sprawl and the limited public transport available outside city centres are global issues, which we are already addressing in France with proven results. The African continent represents a tremendous opportunity for our model, with a potential of more than 2.3 billion car-pooling trips per year,” said Olivier Binet, co-founder of Karos.
“This initial deployment abroad, launched only three months after signing our agreement with temtem and already with 20,000 car-poolers active in Algeria in just 15 days, all prove our ability to roll out our technology and model in an efficient, scalable way in a new country. This is solid proof that now enables us to nurture great ambitions for short-term international expansion.”
temtem’s founder Kamel Haddar said the startup’s data scientists had concluded that the market needed a low-cost solution to complement ride-sharing, especially for commuting from home.
“With the Karos service in Algeria, we want to respond to a societal issue while factoring in the ecological aspect, which is part of the smart city initiatives deployed by the Algerian government and its Minister of Startups,” he said.
Tunisia and Morocco will be the settings for temtem’s subsequent launches of the Karos service, which will see the arrival of Karos in Tunisia in June, with a view to capturing the flow of holiday trips made by two million Algerian tourists each summer.
