Saudi startup Shiftah that pays car owners to wrap their cars with ads has raised seed investment

Riyadh-based advertising startup Shiftah has raised an undislosed amount of seed investment from Saudi Aramco’s Wa’ed Ventures. We can confirm that it’s a six-figure investment. It was secured in December last year but has been announced recently.

Founded last year by Salem Mohammed Aljawini, Ahmed AloRaifi, Anas Altukahifi & Basil Sami Alkuraya, Shiftah is an advertising platform that allows companies to advertise their products and services with wrap ads on cars.

The cars in Shiftah’s network are crowdsourced from car owners who want to make some extra money without having to work extra hours. They can just drive as they would normally do and in the process make some money with those ads wrapped around the car.

Shiftah uses real-time data analytics to charge the advertisers. For companies and advertisers, Shiftah serves as an affordable option for outdoor advertisements. The startup is also in the process of launching Shiftah would provide companies an online platform where they can lively monitor and track their ads campaigns.

“We are looking forward to take part of the recent technological advancements in the Kingdom by digitizing the outdoor advertisement market and provide a new channel to companies of all sizes to promote their products and services. Companies advertising with Shiftah can create and manage campaigns with real-time monitoring and tracking of cars and extract customized reports,” said Salem Aljawini, the co-founder & CEO of Shiftah.

“By advertising with Shiftah, companies will be promoting their brands on an eye-catching art work, they would also be giving back to society. We are extremely delighted to have Wa’ed Ventures investing in Shiftah. Wa’ed investment along with their expertise are important for us to achieve our ambitious vision of becoming a new driving force in the sector among other great advertisement mediums.” Salem added.

We are not sure whether the startup pays drivers a fixed price for letting them use the space for ads or uses a different method. Car owners can download Shiftah’s app and sign up to sell ad space on their cars. According to the information available online, car owners, 21 and older, with a driving license and a car (model) that’s not older than 2010 can sell the space on their cars by downloading Shiftah’s app and signing up.

Wa’ed Ventures’ CEO & Managing Director, speaking about the investment, said: “It is a great opportunity with an enormous social and economic impact. Shiftah provides an opportunity for the youth to generate additional income and lowering the advertising budget for SMEs. Shiftah has a strong team with diverse experience and capability to deliver.”

The startup aims to use this investment to further develop its technology.