Rotterdam-Based Greentech Firm GreenRoutes Raises €450K To Optimise Route Planning Through AI

GreenRoutes, a Rotterdam-based greentech company, announced that it has raised €450K in a pre-Seed round of funding from the Graduate Entrepreneur Fund and others. 

The company says it will use the funds to accelerate product development and expand its platform.  

How was GreenRoutes born?

GreenRoutes was initially started by the brothers Ramy and Yousry Salem, and Coen Douma joined later. 

During his studies, Yousry worked in the office of a waste collection company and noticed that route planning was done manually. This made him develop specific algorithms to solve this problem together with his brother, who was doing research for his master’s thesis in Econometrics at the time. 

Coen was working at software investor Main Capital at the time and came on board to realise the expansion. 

GreenRoutes: What you need to know

The demand for planning technology is high, driven by the pursuit of sustainability, (planning) personnel shortages, the desire to work cloud-based, and soaring fuel prices.

GreenRoutes specialises in optimising routes for companies such as waste collectors and metal wholesalers through Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

The company’s software solution optimises inefficient routes, automates scheduling, and limits dependency on scheduling personnel. 

The product offered by the Dutch company can be linked easily with any administration software (ERP), thus companies in the waste collection and wholesale trade or other sectors with their own logistics can integrate it seamlessly. 

The company aims to offer a one-stop shop for route optimisation, GPS & navigation, automated trip registration, and ETAs to clients without using expensive and delicate hardware devices.

“We notice among our customers and in the broader market that sustainability is an increasingly relevant theme, partly in view of the high fuel prices. We can use our software to give our customers instant insight into the amount of CO₂ and litres of fuel used per day, and where there is room for savings,” writes the company in the press release. 

GreenRoutes’s solution ensures significant savings on personnel hours (drivers/loaders) and kilometres. In addition, automating route planning leads to a reduction in personnel hours for the planners, says the company.