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Ansh Kadam
Founder & CEO at Bui... • 4d
This Norwegian guy launched one of the first car-sharing companies in the Middle East. Meet Vilhelm Hedberg, the founder and CEO of Ekar, the Middle East’s largest self-drive personal mobility company. Vilhelm was born in Caracas, Venezuela, to Norwegian parents. He got his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and an MBA from EAE Barcelona. For 10 years, he worked in shipping and quality certification, but a single flight to Dubai in 2016 changed everything. His friend Ravi Bhusari mentioned how car sharing was gaining traction in Canada, and Vilhelm saw an untapped market in Dubai’s 17,000+ Emirates cabin crew, who traveled frequently and struggled with transportation. So in 2016, Ekar was born. Ekar lets users rent cars by the hour, day, or week through an app that helps them locate, book, and unlock nearby vehicles. But launching wasn’t easy. ▪️ Airlines like Emirates and Etihad had to be convinced that carsharing would work. ▪️ New cities meant navigating local regulations and training staff from scratch. ▪️ Market adoption took time, as car sharing wasn’t common in the region. Yet Vilhelm and his team kept pushing forward. 💡 2017 – Won a contract with Dubai’s Road & Transport Authority to integrate car-sharing with the metro system. 💡 2019 – Partnered with Masdar to introduce Tesla Model S & X. 💡 2024 – Joined forces with Careem to offer rentals across Saudi Arabia via the "Everything App." Today, Ekar operates in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Malaysia, with over 350,000 members and 2 million bookings. They’ve raised over $50 million and continue to scale. But here’s the real lesson: Vilhelm didn’t "invent" car sharing, he adapted it for an underserved market. 🚀 How you can apply this in business: 1️⃣ Look for existing business models in one region and adapt them for another. 2️⃣ Find a niche audience with a pain point and serve them first. (Ekar started with airline crews, not the mass market.) 3️⃣ Keep iterating until you find the right partners to scale. The biggest opportunities often come from seeing what others overlook. If you're looking for more startup and business insights, subscribe to my newsletter through the link in the comment.
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