African mobility fintech partners with Uber, Lori, and Sendy and launches into sixth African city in 18 months
Nairobi, Kenya: 15th December 2021. Moove, an African mobility fintech, has launched operations in Nairobi, its first city in East Africa and sixth on the continent. To expand their vehicle and product offerings to customers, the revenue-based vehicle financing company has partnered with Uber to allow ride-hailing and delivery drivers to purchase motorcycles for Uber Connect, UberEats deliveries and UberBoda trips. In addition, following its recent partnership with pan-African e-logistics platform Lori Systems, Moove has expanded its logistics vehicle offering with Kenyan fulfilment and last-mile logistics company Sendy.
Entering the East African market allows Moove to drive closer to its goal of democratizing vehicle ownership by providing revenue-based vehicle financing across Africa. With Kenya’s lending costs almost twice that of South Africa’s and the average loan deposit standing at 10% – 30%, affordability is still an issue for entrepreneurs who lack a credit history, a typical financing hurdle on the continent. Moove will use the market opportunity to enable drivers to leverage its alternative credit-scoring technology and gain access to brand new vehicles which creates more good job opportunities within the mobility industry.
Commenting on the expansion, Co-Founder and CEO of Moove, Ladi Delano said: “Kenya already has a thriving mobility and entrepreneurial industry for us to tap into and roll out our financing solutions, so we’re very excited to be launching into Nairobi, our sixth market in 18 months. As one of the biggest economies across Africa, our move into Kenya serves as a gateway to other East African markets. We are excited to continue our expansion, having achieved over 50%+ MoM growth since launch”
“Moove recently received the IFC Corporate Award, as one of the top 20 most impactful and transformational companies in their portfolio that is applying an innovative and scalable solution towards solving a continent-wide problem. This further validates that our model is really working, in getting customers to the virtuous path of vehicle ownership, and by doing so, we are creating employment and income opportunities for these mobility entrepreneurs.”
On the back of the recent launch of its first two-wheeler bike product, Moove Xpress, in Lagos, Moove is expanding the new vehicle class to East Africa. As a result of the partnership with Uber, drivers in Nairobi will have access to Moove Xpress bikes for UberConnect (peer to peer delivery), UberBoda trips and UberEats food deliveries. Drivers will be empowered by Moove’s vehicle financing solution, which gives them the flexibility to increase their earnings and productivity.
Currently estimated at $80bn, the two-wheeler hailing market in Sub-Saharan Africa is plagued by a lack of access to new vehicles as well as a lack of regulation for both drivers and riders. Moove is growing its reach in East Africa, in order to increase asset ownership of brand new motorbikes while ensuring regulatory compliance in the sector, ultimately leveraging ride-hailing and delivery apps to boost revenue.
In addition, Moove has also signed a new partnership with Sendy, a Series B end-to-end logistics, retail and freight company. The Sendy partnership expands Mooves logistics vehicle offering following its recent partnership with Lori Systems to fuel the growth of Africa’s trucking and logistics industry. Lack of financing for Africa trucking stands at less than 1%, acutely illustrating the size of the market opportunity for Moove in solving the problem of access to vehicle financing on the continent and addressing a similar supply constraint faced by many mobility and ride-hailing marketplaces.
With the launch in Kenya, Chief Operations Officer, Tayo Oyegunle, states “The team and I are proud to be bringing financial inclusion to mobility entrepreneurs in Nairobi, Kenya. We’re offering flexible employment through revenue-based financing, thus empowering drivers and driving growth in Africa’s mobility industry, underlined by our commitment to ensure that 50% of our customers are female. The Uber, Sendy and Lori System partnerships will also allow us to enter the market with a substantial range of products and services for mobility entrepreneurs to take advantage of by moving people, goods and services.”
Co-founded in 2019 by serial entrepreneurs, Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, Moove provides asset-backed vehicle financing by embedding its alternative credit-scoring technology onto ride-hailing and e-logistics platforms. Moove offers loans to customers by selling them new vehicles and financing up to 95% of the purchase price within five days of signing up. Customers can choose to repay their loans over 12, 36, 48, or 60 months, paying a percentage of their weekly income through the Moove app, which manages all transactions and provides access to other financial products on the platform. To date, Moove-financed cars have completed over 1.6 million trips with over 20 million kilometres travelled across its markets.
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A study in Ghana indicated that up to 70% of two-wheeler taxi drivers did not own the two-wheelers they used, and 56% said the same in Uganda.
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The two-wheeler ride-hailing market is expected to grow in the coming years’. This is due to the growth in the bike last-mile food and delivery industry across the continent, especially in Kenya, which is projected to reach a value of $580m by 2025.
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Between 2018 and 2020, fewer than 33,000 commercial vehicles were sold in Kenya compared to more than 330,000 sold in the UK in just 2020 alone.
About Moove
Moove is an African mobility fintech that is democratizing vehicle ownership by providing revenue-based vehicle financing to mobility entrepreneurs across Africa, where limited access to vehicle financing has resulted in the lowest per capita car ownership in the world. The company is Uber’s exclusive vehicle financing and vehicle supply partner in sub-Saharan Africa. For more information, visit https://moove.africa/.
About Lori Systems
Lori is a tech-driven logistics services company that seamlessly coordinates haulage across frontier markets. Lori’s mission is to drive down the costs of goods. In Africa,$180 billion is spent annually on haulage and logistics account for as much as 75% of a product’s price, compared to 6% in the US. Lori’s tech and operations-driven marketplace efficiently connects transport to shippers and has moved billions of dollars worth of cargo on the platform to date. The platform has significantly improved logistics transparency, flexibility, reliability and costs. Lori operates in 10+ countries across East and West Africa and will expand across Southern Africa through a landmark partnership, growing its presence to nearly 20 countries. Learn more at www.lorisystems.com
About Uber
Uber’s mission is to help people get a ride at the push of a button – everywhere and for everyone. We started in 2009 to solve a simple problem – how do you get a ride at the touch of a button? With over 10 billion trips later, we’ve started tackling an even greater challenge: reducing congestion and pollution in our cities by getting more people into fewer cars.
Uber is available in sixteen cities in Sub-Saharan Africa (Cape Town, Durban, Joburg, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth, East London, Nairobi, Mombasa, Lagos, Abuja, Benin City, Abidjan Kampala, Accra, Kumasi and Dar es Salaam). Overall, the Uber network is available in over 10 000 cities in over 65 countries. To request a ride, users must download the free application for Android, iPhone, Blackberry 7, or register for Uber at www.uber.com/go. For questions visit www.uber.com
