Moove Raises $23m In Series A Round To Ease The Process Of Vehicle Acquisition In Africa

In its Series A round led by Speedinvest and Left Lane Capital, auto financing company Moove raised $23 million. Moove is a vehicle financing company with the aims of simplifying the process of owning vehicles and helping people who find it difficult to own vehicles to do so.

The company said that the just-concluded funding round would increase its ability to give more people access to vehicle ownership, especially those who are unable to get access to vehicle financing.

Apart from Speedinvest and Left Lane Capital that led the round, other notable investors that participated in the round include; DCM, Clocktower Technology Ventures, LocalGlobe, Tekton, FJ Labs, Palm Drive Capital, Roka Works, KAAF Investments, Class 5 Global, Victoria van Lennep, Verod Kepple Africa Ventures, and one of Moove’s existing lenders, Emso Asset Management. After the round, the total investment that the auto financing company had secured rose to $68.2 million; $28.2 million in equity and $40 million in debt.

The investment in Moove marks the exploration of the vehicle financing space in Africa by Venture Capital backers. Moove is leveraging on the fact that vehicle financing is still underdeveloped in Africa and hopes to narrow the vehicle financing gap.

Moove was born out of the founders’ desire to provide Africans with an opportunity to owning new vehicles and providing jobs at the same time. It was initially bootstrapped by founders Jide Odunsi and Ladi Delano after which it had its seed-stage funding from Future Africa.

Speaking on the latest funding, the company’s country manager for Nigeria, Chisom Anoke, said that “This round of funding will enable us to extend our footprint to more states in Nigeria and to continue serving our customers to meet the evolving needs in urban mobility. Our vision for the future also includes a commitment  to reduce our carbon footprint and to increase gender equality within the industry.”

Moove wants to take advantage of the huge market opportunity that the need for vehicle financing has created. For a continent with more than a billion people, Africa remains the continent with the smallest access to vehicle financing and the lowest per capita vehicle ownership globally. The company is looking to provide up to 95 percent of the funding needed by individuals to purchase new vehicles. The company also promises to do this in a way that is transparent as vehicle ownership is a tricky affair in Africa with a lot of people being able to afford used cars popularly referred to as “tokunbo” vehicles.

For now, Moove is targeting people who intend on using these vehicles for business purposes. Its focus is on e-logistics and ride-hailing platforms. The company does this through its alternative credit-scoring technology which grants it access to proprietary performance and revenue analytics of mobility entrepreneurs (Uber drivers for instance) to underwrite loans. After doing this, Moove grants loans to its users by selling them new vehicles and providing finance of up to 95 percent of the purchase within five days of the customer joining the platform. Customers are then given the options of paying back throughout 24, 36 or, 48 months, and instalments are calculated using a percentage of their weekly revenue.

Moove’s services are available and accessible through its app.