Report: Uber Considers Investment in African Vehicle Financing Startup Moove

Uber is reportedly considering joining other investors in a funding round for Moove, an African vehicle financing startup.

The funding round could total between $75 million and $100 million and lift Moove’s value from its current $650 million to about $750 million, Bloomberg reported Friday (Feb. 23), citing unnamed sources.

The talks are ongoing and the numbers could change, according to the report.

Uber did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

Moove provides access to mobility entrepreneurs by embedding its alternative credit-scoring technology onto platforms serving the ride-hailing, logistics, mass transit and instant delivery sectors, according to the company’s website.

The reported funding round would come six months after Moove secured $76 million in funding to expand the platform.

Moove reported at the time that since its previous fundraise in 2022, its financial services platform for mobility gig workers had reported 17x revenue growth and enabled more than 12,000 customers to complete more than 22 million trips in Moove-financed vehicles across 13 markets.

The company also said that it had become Uber’s largest vehicle financing partner in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and now operates the largest electric vehicle fleet on the Uber platform in the United Arab Emirates. It added that it planned to “double down” on its already profitable markets in the UAE, India, the United Kingdom and South Africa.

“With this investment, we will now accelerate our mission and continue creating life-changing opportunities for our customers while working towards profitability,” Moove Co-founder and Co-CEO Ladi Delano said at the time.

The company entered the UAE in December 2022, saying it was committed to ensuring that at least 60% of the vehicles it finances globally are electric.

In September 2022, Moove announced it was launching its vehicle financing service in London, where it said it would offer a 100% rent-to-buy model for electric vehicles. The company added that Uber drivers applying for Moove financing would also qualify for reduced weekly payments through Uber’s Clean Air Plan, an initiative launched in 2019 to help fund Uber drivers’ transition to electric vehicles.