Inside Moove’s plan to sell “at least 50%” of its vehicles to women

As the ride-hailing industry grew in Lagos, so did the demand for affordable car loans to meet the needs of drivers. Moove, a fresh and ambitious startup, stepped in to fill the void. Jide Odunsi and Ladi Delano, the company’s co-founders and co-CEOs, are two young Nigerian entrepreneurs who founded Moove in 2019 to provide “revenue-based vehicle finance to mobility companies.”

The beginning of the Moove story

What they discovered inadvertently was a white space. In the past two years, the company has expanded into over seven markets across the world, become Uber’s exclusive vehicle financing and vehicle supply partner in sub-Saharan Africa, and facilitated more than three million trips in Africa only.

“Moove was initially built to solve a problem in Lagos,” Jonathan Moore, Moove’s Country Manager in charge of its UAE operations, said in an interview with Technext.

We’ve come to understand that this is a global issue affecting emerging markets. There is a segment of mobility entrepreneurs that are underserved by traditional banking institutions and have limited or no access to a vehicle or vehicle financing. As a result, Moove is expanding its model globally to meet the needs of mobility entrepreneurs in these emerging markets.

Jonathan Moore

Moove vision

In March, Moove raised $105 million in a Series A2 funding round to “rapidly scale its revenue-based vehicle financing model to seven new markets across Asia, MENA and Europe region over the next six months.”

With a combined population of over 5 billion people, vehicle ownership stands at 136 per 1000 in Asia and 261 per 1000 in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which highlights just how heavily underserved these markets are.

Jonathan Moore

Moove is only interested in “building the world’s largest and most productive EV fleet to move people and goods.”

“We aim to ensure that at least 60% of the vehicles we finance are EVs or hybrids. This is a really exciting new area of growth for us and we are proud to do our part in the fight against climate change.”

Moove’s plan to sell 50% of its vehicles to women

Since its inception, the ride-hailing industry has struggled with having women as drivers. But Moove, which has touted itself as an inclusive modern company, says that it is committed to ensuring that “at least 50 per cent of the customers we finance are female.”

Moore argues that the company will accomplish this in part because it has “established female customer focus groups to ensure all of our designs and features are tailored to their requirements to help us build diverse vehicle finance products and develop customer acquisition programs.”

Moore added that the company is part of “Nigeria2Equal, an IFC-led, multi-stakeholder program to reduce gender gaps across employment and entrepreneurship.”

He also mentions Moove’s Women Ambassadors network through which he said the company “provides continuous support to our female customers across all of our markets.”

Moove’s percentage rate for drivers

Drivers have over time protested “high percentage rates” for financing offers including at Moove. But Moore pushed back.

Our interest rates are significantly lower than loans from traditional banks and we have specifically designed our model to give our customers as much flexibility as possible to choose their loan payback period over 12 to 60 months.

Jonathan Moore

He also added that “80% of our customers say they don’t feel compelled to drive further than they would normally to reach their minimum KPIs.”

It is not lost on Moore however, that in developing countries with low credit culture that the company has penetrated, Moove will have to look for effective ways to sustain its business model of creating car financing loans.

“In emerging markets across the globe, a lack of credit history is holding millions of people back from becoming mobility entrepreneurs,” he said. “However, we’re democratising access to vehicle financing by focussing on their potential to generate future revenue.”

How will move maintain the momentum?

Moove has remained the fastest-growing vehicle financing fintech for mobility entrepreneurs on the continent of Africa. As it moves quickly to assert itself in African markets, its rise has largely been unbridled. Moore says that the company has employed strategic modules to attain and sustain this.

“As we continue to make rapid progress, we believe our company culture is the most important risk mitigation tool we have,” he said.

“We are only hiring people who truly understand the problem we’re solving and we actively encourage our team to spend time on the ground with our customers to not only build empathy but also understand the nuances of each market and develop more inspiration for solutions.”