Moove, a Nigerian fintech start-up that also operates in South Africa and Ghana, has raised US$23-million (R335-million) in series-A funding to expand its tech-based vehicle financing platform.
Moove is Uber’s exclusive vehicle financing and vehicle supply partner in sub-Saharan Africa, with Moove-financed cars having completed more than 850 000 Uber trips.
The funding round was 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, Spartech Ventures, Class 5 Global and Victoria van Lennep, co-founder of Lendable.
Africa specialist Verod Kepple Africa Ventures and Emso Asset Management, one of Moove’s existing lenders, also joined the round.
The investment brings Moove’s total funding to $68.2-million (almost R1-billion at the time of writing), including $28.2-million in equity and $40-million in debt.
“Moove is the first investment in Africa for many of its US-based venture capital backers, underscoring the opportunity for a platform like Moove to address the continent’s vehicle financing gap,” the company said in a statement on Monday.
Mobility fintech
“Operating on a continent with more than a billion people who have limited or no access to vehicle financing – and the lowest per-capita vehicle ownership in the world – 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 fewer than 900 000 total new vehicle sales compared to 17 million in the US,” it said.
The company explained that it embeds an alternative credit-scoring technology into ride-hailing and e-logistics platforms, which allows access to proprietary performance and revenue analytics of mobility entrepreneurs to underwrite loans.
“Moove’s 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 sign-up. Moove customers can choose to pay back their loans over 24, 36 or 48 months, using a percentage of their weekly revenue.”
All Moove customers sign up to the app can manage their transactions and access other financial products.
Co-founders Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi are British-born Nigerians, educated at the London School of Economics, Oxford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Odunsi is a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs and former management consultant at McKinsey.) They have built three other businesses in Africa in the last eight years through their “venture studio”, Grace Lake Partners.
“We help people buy new cars who otherwise couldn’t afford them. And then, using the vehicle as a mobility entrepreneur, they’re able to earn money, which allows them to pay off the vehicle over time,” said co-founder Delano.
The start-up was initially bootstrapped by its co-founders with seed stage funding from Future Africa, an Africa-focused fund led by Iyin Aboyeji, who was a founder at Andela and Flutterwave. – © 2021 NewsCentral Media
