Yinson, and SMRT Ventures co-invest in MooVita

Yinson Group executive vice-president of new ventures and technology Eirik Barclay (pic) said the investment was in line with YGT’s ambitions of accelerating the global transition to a low carbon economy through green technology investments.

PETALING JAYA: Yinson Holdings Bhd has entered into an agreement with SMRT Ventures to co-invest in MooVita Pte Ltd, an autonomous vehicle tech startup.

Being the lead investor, this marked Yinson’s first foray into mobility, one of the three segments alongside marine and energy that it is actively earmarking under its newly established Yinson Green Technologies Division (YGT).

The group said in a statement that the co-investment aimed to accelerate the development, commercialisation and international expansion of MooVita’s driverless solutions, beginning with the deployment of safe and comfortable driverless solutions for public transportation and the urban environment.

This is achievable by leveraging on Yinson’s extensive experience in the logistics solutions and energy industries as well as SMRT Ventures and the transport ecosystem in Singapore.

Yinson Group executive vice-president of new ventures and technology Eirik Barclay (pic) said the investment was in line with YGT’s ambitions of accelerating the global transition to a low carbon economy through green technology investments.

“We look forward to working closely with MooVita to develop and roll out technologies that can help to mitigate some of the most pressing issues faced by the transportation industry today – road accidents, carbon emissions, and traffic congestion, ” he said.

“The investment reflected YGT’s alignment with the group’s commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) and SDG 13 (Climate Action).

“Our plan is to replace existing infrastructure and develop innovative business solutions in order to make transportation sustainable through the adoption of clean and environmentally-sound technologies.

“The co-investment into MooVita presents a wonderful opportunity to contribute back to the sustainable transportation infrastructure in Singapore, where YGT is currently based, ” said Eirik, adding that there are also future plans to operationalise the technology in Malaysia.Group chief strategy officer Daniel Bong said Yinson is adopting a targeted strategy where it taps into its existing strengths in logistics solutions, energy infrastructure and renewables and focuses on the geo-markets.

“We believe that this approach will help us to build profitable, disruptive businesses, that meets the needs created by the global climate action agenda – thereby propelling us to stay ahead and deliver continued stakeholder value.”

MooVita co-founder and chief operating officer Dilip Limbu said: “With this injection of capital and business acumen, alongside Yinson and SMRT Ventures, we’ll focus on advancing our driverless technologies, building a fleet of driverless shuttle buses and safe on-road operations, expediting the deployment of the MooVita’s driverless public transport solutions across Asian urbanscapes, starting from Singapore and Malaysia.”Established in 2016,

MooVita is a high-tech start-up specialised in designing and deploying roadworthy autonomous vehicles in urban cities worldwide.

It is currently developing an industry-leading component-based driverless software solution, which transforms various vehicle types into versatile autonomous vehicles for multitudinous driving conditions and applications, such as first or last mile transportation, logistic transportation, agriculture, and utility solutions.