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Moove, the Uber-backed Nigerian startup that finances vehicles for ride-hailing companies, is expanding operations to the U.S. Since August, the company has listed vacancies for roles in Los Angeles and California. This expansion supports the startup’s plan to achieve profitability in 2025. Those U.S. roles include a managing director and more recently a head of debt capital market who will be “critical in driving our fundraising efforts, engaging with key financial stakeholders, and structuring complex transactions,” according to a LinkedIn listing. The four-year-old startup, founded by Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, shared its expansion plans in March 2024 when it announced a$100 million raise from Uber, Future Africa, Dubai-based The Latest Ventures, AfricInvest, Palm Drive Capital, and Triatlum Advisors. Moove did not disclose the destination countries but said it will majorly finance electric vehicles upon entry. The company, which operates in six markets—Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, the U.K., India and the UAE, plans to expand to six additional countries by 2025. Moove did not immediately respond to requests for comments. 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, per a March report. If Uber’s partnership with Moove is borderless, as its participation in the startup’s $100 million raise suggests, the company’s zero-emission mandate may see a similar soft landing in the U.S. where electric vehicles are increasingly popular. The mobility fintech sells fleets of vehicles to drivers who need them for ride-hailing, logistics and deliveries. It deducts a percentage of the drivers’ income weekly enabling them to pay for the car in installments. This model has met roadblocks in Nigeria where drivers are increasingly finding it difficult to meet payment targets due to inflation and fuel price hikes. It is unlikely that the startup will face similar challenges in the U.S. with a relatively stable economy and reliable credit scoring systems. It is not yet clear if the company will adjust its business model to fit into these new markets or if the revenue-based financing it offers to ride-hailing, logistics, mass transit, and instant delivery platforms, will remain unchanged. Have you got your early-bird tickets to the Moonshot Conference? Click this link to grab ’em and check out our fast-growing list of speakers coming to the conference!
Read MoreSeveral flights were canceled, and hundreds of travelers were left stranded at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) after aviation workers began a strike over a proposal to lease the airport to India’s Adani Group for 30 years. Those workers want the deal canceled over fears of mass layoffs. At 10:00 am on Wednesday, a spot check by TechCabal showed that no flight had landed or taken off at the country’s main airport. Data from Flightradar, a global flight tracking platform, recorded minimal activity at East Africa’s busiest transport hub. The disruption has affected both international and domestic flights. “Kenya Airways would like to alert you that due to the action by some JKIA staff, this has resulted in some delays and possible cancellations of some of our flights for both departing and arriving passengers,” Kenya Airways said in a notice to passengers. Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Monday, the government’s last-minute efforts to stop the Kenya Aviation Workers Union (KAWU) failed after the representatives accused state officials and airport management of ignoring their demands. “The government has failed to provide the documents we requested for the Adani deal. The strike will go on until the government stops the deal,” said Moss Ndiema, KAWU secretary general. A Kenyan high court suspended the 30-year build-operate-transfer concession until it rules. The privately-initiated project by Gautam Adani’s firm has been opposed over controversial clauses including stopping Kenya from building or expanding other competing airports for 30 years. While the government has defended the deal as the best option to expand JKIA amid a cut in development budgets, it maintains that a decision has not been made to proceed with the lease. On September 3, Kenya sent 16 officials to India for due diligence including inspecting the company’s financial records. At the same time, the Indian conglomerate sent representatives to Nairobi, signalling that the deal could be in advanced stages. “Secret, unknown, unexplained and clandestine movements and activities by Adani employees, agents or assigns around JKIA and related installations be halted and stopped forthwith,” KAWU said in a notice.
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In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Good morning If you want to dive into the future of African tech, then Moonshot 2024 is where you want to be. Connect with industry pioneers, explore emerging trends, and discover untapped business opportunities in one of the world’s most dynamic markets. Enjoy the vibrant energy of Lagos while staying seamlessly connected with prepaid eSIMs from Sochitel. Register now for two days of inspiration, networking, and innovation. Risevest completes Hisa acquisition Cost considerations are driving shrewd Nigerian banking business Are ride-hailing platforms broken? Drivers say yes Egypt’s inflation soars first time in five months The World Wide Web3 Opportunities M&As Risevest completes Hisa acquisition Eke Urum, CEO of Rise, and Eric Asuma, co-founder of Hisa While Nigeria’s Access Bank is easily the busiest M&A machine in the financial services space, fintech startup Risevest isn’t doing badly either. Two months after we first reported that it was in talks to buy the Kenyan fintech startup Hisa, the deal has officially closed. It’s Risevest’s second acquisition in a little under a year. Anatomy of the deal: Risevest and Hisa are fintech startups allowing a growing class of African retail investors access to global stocks and other investment options like real estate. An acquisition of Hisa, which has been approved by Kenya’s markets authority, allows Risevest to expand to Kenya without any hassle. Without this acquisition, getting a licence to operate a fintech in Kenya may have taken up to two years. How much did this deal cost? Risevest and Hisa prefer not to say, although one person with direct knowledge of the deal said it was a cash and stock deal. While a 2022 fund raise valued Hisa at $5 million, it’s doubtful that it would have sold for anywhere near that price. Watch out for Kenn’s article on why this deal made sense for Hisa. A nose for a deal? Risevest acquired Nigerian fintech Chaka in September 2023—it also declined to share the specifics of that deal. That deal made sense because it allowed Risevest to expand its slew of licences, said one person familiar with the deal. Chaka for instance, offered Nigerian stocks and was one of the first companies to receive a digital sub-broker licence from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Given that both companies’ investors were interested in making the 2023 deal happen, it is likely to have been a stock-only deal. Will we continue to see savvy dealmaking from Risevest as it adds more infinity stones spots more opportunities? Its CEO artfully sidestepped that question. However, he spoke to us on what the future holds for Hisa under new ownership. Read about it here. Read Moniepoint’s 2024 Informal Economy Report Did you know that 57.7% of the business owners in Nigeria’s informal economy are under 34 years old? Click here to find out more about the demographics of Nigeria’s informal economy. Banking How cost considerations are driving shrewd banking business in Nigeria Image Source: Wunmi Eunice/TechCabal. How do the rich stay rich? By shrewdly keeping an eye on costs and ruthlessly pruning anything that may become a drag on their finances later. That’s the story of Nigeria’s biggest commercial banks which reported a combined ₦9.51 trillion ($5.7 million) in profits in 2023. Some tier-1 banks briefly hit ₦1 trillion (($608 million) in market capitalisation despite Nigeria’s macroeconomic conditions. Nigeria’s big banks have perfected the art of eking out profits regardless of the economic conditions and USD-denominated costs are the current enemy of that goal. The decision to float the naira has significantly increased technology costs; think storage, software licencing and even hardware. While banks are notoriously conservative businesses, we’re seeing some flexibility in how they’re thinking about technology costs. On Monday, Sterling Bank formally announced its move to SeaBaaS, a new core banking application. One person suggested that cost consideration may have played a part in the decision to have its custom software. Beyond software, local cloud players are also finding joy pitching to companies. With more competitive pricing than AWS or Azure, big organisations are trying new entities. Huawei, the Chinese enterprise company that went from upstart to a dominant player in the telecoms market, is also seeing and taking opportunities in the Nigerian banking space. Here’s an excerpt from a TechCabal story about how Huawei sold some storage to United Bank for Africa (UBA), a tier-1 commercial bank; “They lure customers in with the option of a free-to-use one-year solution,” said one cloud engineer at another tier-1 bank, citing Huawei’s extended proof of concept that allowed banks to use specific solutions for free. “No one else will offer you a one-year proof of concept,” another cloud engineer said. Read about it here. Fincra secures International Money Transfer Operator (IMTO) licence in Nigeria Since its inception, Fincra has provided businesses with local payment options. However, with the IMTO licence, Fincra can now manage funds transfers from abroad to Nigerian recipients more efficiently. Read more here. Mobility Are Ride-Hailing Platforms Broken? Drivers Say Yes Image source: TechCabal Kenyan and Nigerian gig drivers can trade places given how similar their challenges are. Two weeks after gig drivers in Kenya defied the almighty algorithms of Uber and Bolt to fix their own prices—that was always going to be shortlived for reasons I’ll explain later—Nigerian drivers are lightly copying the playbook. One gig driver in Lagos shared that trips under ₦3,000 ($1.82) are not worth his time; drivers are now telling customers to pay extra or cancel the trips. On Monday, my colleagues in Abuja took four trips on Bolt and Uber for which they had to pay above the prescribed prices. Is the gig driving model broken? Or are macroeconomic conditions spotlighting problems in a fragile business model? These questions are crucial as the gig economy faces increasing tensions between drivers and ride-hailing companies. Drivers in Kenya and Nigeria are protesting low fares, rising costs, and the perceived unfairness of the platform algorithms. Bolt and Uber increased fare
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