Speedinvest and Left Lane Capital have led a $23m Series A financing round in Moove, an African mobility fintech company.

Other investors in the round included 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.

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 $68.2m, including $28.2m in equity and $40m in debt.

Moove is the first investment in Africa for many of its US VC investors, underscoring the opportunity for a platform like Moove to address the continent’s vehicle financing gap.

“Moove’s technology is fundamentally changing access to mobility and empowering thousands to earn a new source of income,” said Dan Ahrens, Managing Partner at Left Lane Capital.

“As we look ahead, the potential for that technology and the Moove team to expand even further is very exciting. They have the opportunity to become a full-service mobility fintech and expand their offerings to insurance and other financial services.”

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.

Founded by Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi,  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.

Moove’s model is to provide loans to its customers by selling them new vehicles and financing up to 95% of the purchase within five days of sign up.

“In a continent full of opportunity, mobility is key to moving economies forward and this funding contributes to our ability to provide revenue-based financing, as Moove empowers Africans to safely become mobility entrepreneurs,” said Ladi Delano, co-founder of Moove.

“We help people buy new cars who otherwise couldn’t afford them. And then, using the vehicle as a mobility entrepreneur, they’re able to earn money, which allows them to pay off the vehicle over time.” 

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.

“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% in Europe.”