Moove, Mobility Fintech Raises $105 million Series A Round.

More than a billion people reside in Africa, a place where there is limited or no access to vehicle financing for the majority of its population. It is also a place where the high rate of poverty has made car ownership a luxury for most of the population. In 2019, the continent had fewer than 900,000 new vehicle sales compared to 17 million recorded by the U.S. In the same year.

The mobility startup has raised $105 million in new Series A2 funding round. This latest fundraising round came almost 7 months after Moove’s $23 million Series A in August 2021, a month after a $10 million debt financing round (February 2022), and seed-stage funding from Future Africa in 2019, bringing the total investments raised by the startup to $174.5 million.

According to Moove, Series A2 is a new priced round consisting primarily of existing investors, with three new investors joining. The $105m is entirely fresh capital to the business. Co-founded in 2019 by Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, the startup offers mobility entrepreneurs easy access to revenue-based financing in markets where there is low access to credits.

The co-founders who are both British-born Nigerians, alumni of the London School of Economics, Oxford University, and MIT, have also launched three other businesses in Africa before Moove. Their Existing investors Speedinvest and Left Lane Capital led the seed round and shared between $65 million equity and $40 million debt with participation from the latest ventures. New investors such as AfricInvest, MUFG Innovation Partners, Latitude, and Kreos Capital also participated. The startup which formally launched in 2020 is now present in six African cities: Lagos, Accra, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nairobi, and Ibadan.

Despite these achievements, there are still millions of budding entrepreneurs who have limited or no access to vehicle financing. This is why Moove plans to use the new investment to expand its vehicle financing model to 7 new markets across Asia, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Europe over the next six months, to “meet the needs of mobility entrepreneurs in other emerging markets.

The mobility sector in emerging economies like Africa is facing challenges due to its highly fragmented and informal nature as well as insufficient purchasing power among middle-class citizens and limited or no access to vehicle financing. This often put cars out of reach for the majority of the population in these countries. With its revenue-based financing model, Moove is addressing this problem albeit for a segment of the population: mobility entrepreneurs. In addition to its global scaling plans, the startup will also expand its partnerships and vehicle classes to include cars, trucks, bikes, three-wheelers, and buses.