Founded by British-born Nigerians Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, Moove is democratising vehicle ownership in Africa by providing revenue-based financing to mobility entrepreneurs.
Moove incorporates its alternative credit scoring technology into ride-hailing and e-logistics platforms, which allows access to mobility entrepreneurs’ performance and revenue analysis to underwrite loans. Its model is to provide loans to its customers by selling them new vehicles and financing up to 95% of the purchase within five days of registration.
Moove customers can choose to pay off their loans over 24, 36, or 48 months, using a percentage of their weekly revenue. All Moove customers sign up for the Moove app to manage all transactions and access other financial products on the platform. The company is Uber’s exclusive vehicle finance and supply partner in sub-Saharan Africa, with Moove having financed over 850,000 Uber rides covering over 13 million kilometres across the continent to date.
The startup has now raised $23 million in Series A funding led by Speedinvest and Left Lane Capital with participation from DCM, Clocktower Technology Ventures, thelatest.ventures, LocalGlobe, Tekton, FJ Labs, Palm Drive Capital, Roka Works, KAAF Investments, Class 5 Global, and Victoria van Lennep, the co-founder of Lendable. Kepple Africa Ventures, and one of Moove’s existing lenders, Emso Asset Management, have also joined the round, which brings Moove’s total funding to $68.2 million, including $28.2 million in equity and $40 million in debt.
Moove will use the funding round to build a full-service mobility fintech that democratises vehicle ownership across Africa. The market opportunity is vast – Africa is home to 1.3 billion people, with 43% in urban areas and growing, and in 2019 had less than 900,000 total new vehicle sales compared to 17 million in the US.
“On a continent full of opportunity, mobility is key to moving economies forward and this funding contributes to our ability to provide revenue-based financing as Moove empowers Africans to safely become mobility entrepreneurs,” said Ladi Delano, co-founder of Moove. “We help people buy new cars that otherwise couldn’t afford them. And then by using the vehicle as a mobility entrepreneur, they are able to earn money, which allows them to pay off the vehicle over time.”
