Moove Raises $100m in Fresh Race to Conquer New Markets

By Adedapo Adesanya

Exactly a year after raising $105 million in an oversubscribed Series A2 round, African mobility company, Moove, has raised $100 million in a Series B funding round as it plots expansion into new markets.

According to reports, the funding round was led by mobility giant, Uber and saw injection from others such as sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, The Latest Ventures, AfricInvest, Palm Drive Capital, Triatlum Advisors, and Future Africa. This now pushes Moove’s post-money valuation to $750 million.

The company is helping to solve the continent’s acute problem of limited access to vehicle financing for millions of Africans by using data to democratize ownership.

And now with the new funding, Moove is planning to use the new capital to expand its revenue-based vehicle financing platform to 16 markets by the end of 2025.

The company currently operates in 13 cities across six markets, including Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, the United Kingdom, India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The fund will also allow it to expand its sustainability targets further as it plans to attain a complete zero-emission fleet by 2040 through the adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs).

The vehicle financing startup operates large EV fleets in the UAE and the UK and according to Tech Crunch, it is testing a product line in India, with plans to introduce more than 20,000 EVs on Uber.

In a statement, Moove said that a considerable portion of its expansion into new markets will focus on EVs, “which will lay the groundwork for a more sustainable and accessible mobility ecosystem for its customers worldwide.”

This will however not extend to Africa, which is still largely dependent on fossil fuels.

In an interview with the tech publication, the co-CEO of Moove, Mr Ladi Delano said, “We want to be at the forefront of electrification in the U.K. and UAE by putting more EVs on the road. But in countries like Nigeria, we hope to be at the forefront of the transition from ICE (internal combustion engines) to compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles and then from CNG to EVs,”

“We’re doing a lot of work at the moment to prepare the Nigerian market for CNG transition, in the hope that will reduce the impact of the increasing fuel price on the bottom line of our customers.”

In Nigeria, due to the current economic challenges, Mr Delano said that Moove has instituted some palliatives to help drivers including subsidies, extension of repayment plans from the usual 48 months to 60 months, and reducing weekly remittances by 33 per cent.

Despite these challenges, Moove will not be looking at an exit in Nigeria, even as the firm does not make a profit and has lost its top market status in the country.