Africa is home to 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, an African mobility FinTech, today announced that it has raised $23 million or R335 million in Series A funding.
The 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, Class 5 Global, and Victoria van Lennep, co-founder of Lendable. Africa specialist, Verod Kepple Africa Ventures, and one of Moove’s existing lenders, Emso Asset Management, also joined the round.
This brings Moove’s total funding to $68.2 million or R994 million, including $28.2 million in equity and $40 million in debt.
Moove is the first investment in Africa for many of its U.S. VC backers, underscoring the opportunity for a platform like Moove to address the continent’s vehicle financing gap.
The company said it will use the funds to build a full-service mobility FinTech that democratizes 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 U.S.
Moove embeds its alternative credit-scoring technology onto ride-hailing and e-logistics platforms, which allows access to proprietary performance and revenue analytics of mobility entrepreneurs to underwrite loans.
Its model is to provide loans to its customers by selling them new vehicles and financing up to 95 per cent of the purchase within five days of sign up. Its 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 Moove app to manage all transactions and access other financial products on the platform.
Co-founders Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi are British-born Nigerians, educated at the London School of Economics, Oxford University and MIT, who have successfully built three other businesses in Africa over the last eight years through their venture studio, Grace Lake Partners.
Ladi is a serial entrepreneur and Jide is a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs and former management consultant at McKinsey. Driven by a common passion to create shared value leveraging their extensive operating experience on the continent, they set out to build Moove to provide Africans with a path to new vehicle ownership while creating new jobs.
“In four months of operating in South Africa, we have established our foothold in the market, built a strong team on the ground, and delivered a product that improves our customers’ experience. With this focus, we have seen rapid growth in sign-ups and a 4x increase in both revenue and completed trips since launch” said Sinako Cetyiwe, South Africa country manager for Moove.
“Now that we have proven product-market fit, this funding will allow us to scale up and expand in Johannesburg and other cities in South Africa, including Durban and Cape Town. Our Drive-To-Own product will also be introduced to the market, enabling drivers in South Africa to begin their entrepreneurial journey.”
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 covering over 13 million kilometers across the continent to date.
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. The new Series A funding will allow Moove to grow and expand into new markets as well as develop and launch new products and services. The equity raise follows a year of momentum and success for Moove with the launch of three cities and 60% month-on-month growth so far.
“With Ladi and Jide at the helm of a world-class team, and their unique approach to vehicle financing, Moove has quickly established itself as one of the most exciting tech companies in Africa,” said Stefan Klestil, General Partner at Speedinvest.
“The company’s expansion to three cities in under 12 months demonstrates the huge demand for vehicle financing in Africa, where just five per cent of new cars are purchased with financing, compared to 92 per cent in Europe.”
Moove is a mission-led company that’s committed to giving 100% of mobility entrepreneurs access to affordable credit and ensuring that 50% of its customers are women.
It also aims to ensure that at least 60% of the vehicles it finances are electric or hybrid vehicles as part of its commitment to improving road safety and vehicle emissions on Africa’s roads.