Nigerian-Founded Moove Hits $2.1 Billion Valuation on $250 Million Round, Bets Big on Autonomous Fleets

The Lagos-born mobility company has grown from financing ride-hailing drivers to operating 42,000 vehicles across 13 countries. Its latest funding will push it deeper into autonomous fleet infrastructure.

Moove, the mobility company founded in Lagos by Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, has raised $250 million in Series C funding at a $2.1 billion valuation, marking another major jump for one of Africa’s most heavily funded startup success stories.

The round was led by Mubadala Investment Company and co-led by Woven Capital, Toyota’s growth fund, and Ion Pacific. BlueCrest Capital Management, Sona Asset Management and The Raptor Group also participated.

But the more interesting part of the raise is what Moove plans to do with the money.

The company that started in 2020 by helping ride-hailing drivers finance vehicles is now building infrastructure for autonomous fleets.

From 76 cars in Lagos to 42,000 vehicles globally

Moove began with just 76 vehicles in Lagos.

Six years later, the company says it operates around 42,000 vehicles across 29 cities in 13 countries, employs about 3,300 people, and generates $420 million in annual recurring revenue.

Its headquarters have since moved to the UAE, and its business has expanded far beyond its original vehicle-financing model.

Moove now combines fleet ownership, vehicle operations, charging infrastructure, maintenance and logistics across both human-driven and autonomous mobility.

That shift has become increasingly important to its growth strategy.

Through its partnership with Waymo, Moove is already operating autonomous vehicle fleets in Phoenix and Miami, with London expected to follow.

The next bet is autonomous vehicle infrastructure

Most of the new funding will support Moove’s autonomous vehicle business.

Part of that will go into what the company calls “Nests” — robotics-first depots where autonomous vehicles can be charged, serviced, maintained and prepared for continuous operation.

The idea is straightforward: self-driving cars may remove the need for drivers, but they still need physical infrastructure and people behind the scenes to keep them running.

Vehicles need charging. They need cleaning and repairs. They need somewhere to be stored. Fleets need to be monitored and repositioned across cities.

Moove increasingly wants to be the company providing that operating layer.

The company plans to expand its autonomous vehicle workforce from roughly 150 people to around 500 by the end of 2026, an increase of more than 220%.

Mubadala’s Ali Eid AlMheiri said the infrastructure supporting autonomous vehicles will become increasingly important as the technology moves from experimentation into wider commercial use.

Moove has changed considerably from the company Nigeria first knew

When Moove launched in Lagos, its pitch was built around a very African problem.

Many ride-hailing drivers could earn money with a vehicle but could not afford to buy one because traditional lenders often required credit histories or collateral they did not have.

Moove bought vehicles and financed them to drivers using their earnings from mobility platforms to assess and manage repayment.

That model took the company from Nigeria into other African markets and later into Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

In 2024, Moove raised $100 million at a valuation of about $750 million, with Uber and Mubadala among its investors. At the time, its annual recurring revenue was above $115 million.

Its new $2.1 billion valuation therefore represents a near-threefold increase in roughly two years.

The company has also expanded through acquisitions, including Brazilian mobility company Kovi and Tokyo Taxi in Japan.

The African startup story is still part of it

Moove may now be headquartered in Dubai and increasingly focused on autonomous mobility in markets such as the United States and the United Kingdom, but its origins remain significant.

It started in Lagos around a problem that was obvious to anyone familiar with ride-hailing in African cities: drivers needed cars, demand for rides existed, but affordable vehicle financing was difficult to access.

What began as a solution to that problem has now become a company valued at $2.1 billion and trying to become a global infrastructure provider for autonomous transportation.

That evolution also makes Moove an unusual African startup story.

Rather than simply taking its original product into more countries, the company has changed the type of business it wants to become.

The next phase will depend less on financing cars for human drivers and more on whether Moove can become an important operator behind fleets that may eventually have no drivers at all.