Moove, the African fintech company that finances vehicles for ride-hailing companies, is expanding its operations into the U.S. As per Tech Cabal, the company has listed vacancies for roles in Los Angeles and California since August. Also, the move is part of the company’s effort to improve its profitability.
The company currently operates in six markets—Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, the U.K., India, and the UAE—and plans to expand to six additional countries by 2025.
Three years ago, Moove announced that it was 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.
“The U.S. expansion may play out like Moove’s 2023 move into the UAE, where it operates a 100% EV fleet, some of which accounted for the largest number of EV trips on the Uber UAE platform in the same year. It also operates EV fleets in the U.K. and is preparing to introduce more than 20,000 EVs on Uber in India,” according to Tech Cabal.
Moove works by embedding its alternative credit scoring technology onto ride-hailing and e-logistics platforms. This then allows access to proprietary performance and revenue analytics of mobility entrepreneurs to underwrite loans.
The fintech’s model is to provide loans to its customers by selling them new vehicles and financing up to 95 percent of the purchase within five days of sign-up.
“Moove customers can choose to pay back their loans over 24, 36, or 48 months, using a percentage of their weekly revenue. All Moove customers sign up to the Moove app to manage all transactions and access other financial products on the platform,” a statement by the company said.
The expansion into the U.S. market follows a $100 million raise from Uber, Future Africa, Dubai-based The Latest Ventures, AfricInvest, Palm Drive Capital, and Triatlum Advisors in March this year.
Moove was co-founded by Delano and Jide Odunsi, both British-born Nigerians. They were educated at the London School of Economics, Oxford University, and MIT. Also, they have successfully built several other businesses in Africa through their venture studio, Grace Lake Partners.
