Auto financing company, Moove expands into Cape Town following $23m raise

As part of its growth plan across Africa, mobility financing company, Moove has announced its launch in Cape Town. The city is the fourth location that the company has launched its operations within 15 months of operations.

This rollout in Cape Town follows Moove’s recent $23m Series A raise and builds on existing operations in Johannesburg, Lagos and Accra. Co-founded in 2019 by serial entrepreneurs, Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, the startup is driven by the goal of democratizing vehicle ownership across Africa.

Moove embeds its alternative credit-scoring technology onto ride-hailing and e-logistics platforms. As Uber’s exclusive vehicle financing and vehicle supply partner in sub-Saharan Africa, reaching one million trips comes at a time when Moove is seeing a significant uptick in sign-ups.

Its credit scoring technology -onboarded onto ride-hailing and e-logistics platforms- allows access to proprietary performance and revenue analytics of mobility entrepreneurs (Uber drivers) to underwrite loans.

The auto financing company provides loans to its customers by selling them new vehicles and financing up to 95% of the purchase within five days of signing up. Customers can choose to pay back their loans over 24, 36, or 48 months, using a percentage of their weekly revenue.

“With consistent 60% month-on-month growth since we launched in Lagos in mid-2020, I’m proud of our team for getting us to four markets in just 15 months,” Ladi Delano, Co-Founder and CEO said.

To date, the company said that it has enjoyed more than 14,700 sign-ups across the continent.

According to the company, plans are in motion to establish a presence in more locations over the coming months. It says that the choice of the second city in South Africa reflects a population approaching 60 million people of which 67% live in urban areas.

“We’ve only been operating in South Africa for four months, but it’s an excellent market with huge demand for our product,” said Sinako Cetyiwe, South Africa Country Manager for Moove.

“The next phase for Cape Town and the rest of the country is to grow our sign-ups, revenue, and trips so that we can empower more South Africans to become mobility entrepreneurs and earn a living in safe, new vehicles.”

Sinako Cetyiwe, South Africa Country Manager, Moove

According to a release by the company, the move coincides with an announcement of 5 new C-suite hires for its global operations as well as in celebration of a significant milestone of one million Uber trips completed by Moove-financed cars.

Caroline Hazlehurst joins as President of Operations, Ammar Naqvi as Chief Technology, Youssef Ouyhya as Chief Data Officer, Tuvia Rosenthal as Chief Product Officer, and Quinten Indarjith as Chief Fleet Officer. The new executives have collective experience at Amazon, Bird, Careem, Facebook, Google and Toyota.

“We are super excited about our new team members, who, alongside our existing Moovers, will undoubtedly continue to help us attract more diverse talent as we look to build a dynamic, fun, and rewarding place to work”, Delano said.

They will work alongside existing senior leadership comprised of Tayo Oyegunle, Chief Operations Officer Africa, Tingting Peng, Head of Capital Partnerships & ESG, Andries Hugo, Head of Finance Africa, and Oyinade Osobajo, Head of Marketing Africa.