Online crane rental platform MYCRANE and aggregated digital platform Equip9 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at Excon, South Asia?s largest construction equipment event, which took place in Bengaluru, India last week.

MYCRANE developed the world?s first online crane rental platform in 2021, helping customers save time and money when they need to hire a crane. Its unique, uniform quotation system enables proposals from suppliers to be easily compared, negating the need to manually contact rental companies.

Based in Pune, India Equip9 is an AI-enabled start-up that has developed an app for everything related to heavy equipment. With over 30,000 registered users, the app caters to a diverse audience of industry professionals, including operators, mechanics, rental equipment and owners, resellers, virtual dealerships, suppliers, financiers, e-learning and other entities.

MYCRANE and Equip9 will work together to advance technical and commercial projects, particularly focussing on how AI can be used to power recommendation and selection models, including those to identify the most appropriate lifting equipment, or rental provider.

Under the terms of the MOU, Dubai-based MYCRANE will assist Equip9 in expanding its reach beyond India, especially in the Middle East, while Equip9 will help MYCRANE increase its penetration in the Indian market. MYCRANE announced the launch of wholly-owned operations in India in September 2023, following the appointment of experienced industry partners Rajiv Waichal and Ganesh M. Patil.

?Both MYCRANE and Equip9 share a common interest in ensuring the construction sector reaps the benefits of digitalisation that are present in many other segments,? said Andrei Geikalo, CEO and founder of MYCRANE.