Dreamer Behind the Wheel : Moove and the Nigerian Startup Story

By Aksah Italo
Published on 10/23/25

Ladi Delano, UK-born Nigerian entrepreneur, has always been a dreamer, one who never stopped asking “why.”

As a child, he chased opportunities wherever he could find them, turning preschool playgrounds into makeshift marketplaces. His headmasters frowned on his antics, calling them “reprehensible” and “naughty.” But to Ladi, they were simply proof of his boundless ambition.

“I was shamelessly ambitious and unashamedly enterprising,” he recalls with a grin.

That ambition would shape the next two decades of his life. By the time he reached university, Ladi was restless. Halfway through his undergraduate studies, he dropped out in search of greener pasture, dabbling in ventures across continents. Some succeeded, many failed, but each stumble forced him to confront a deeper question: Why am I chasing this dream?

“What is the point to all this?,” he always asked feeling a waver of obfuscation.

The turning point came when he encountered a business paper by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, which argued that companies obsessed with short-term financials often miss the real drivers of long-term success: the social and economic well-being of their communities.

The answer revealed itself not in meditation, but in the pages of an academic paper. Reading Michael Porter and Mark Kramer’s arguments on “shared value,” Delano saw his own missteps reflected back. Too many of his ventures had been obsessed with financial returns, while ignoring the larger forces that determined real, long-term success.

It became his compass, He took “ business should not just extract value, but create it for the communities it touches.”

That idea would eventually inform Moove, the company Delano co-founded with Jide Odunsi in 2020.

In Africa’s vibrant startup ecosystem, where innovation collides with structural challenges, Moove has carved out a unique path. The Nigerian-born fintech has emerged as one of the continent’s fastest-growing startups, redefining access to vehicle ownership and ride-hailing opportunities.

Moove’s model was disruptive from the start. Instead of requiring traditional credit histories, it adopted a revenue-based financing system: ride-hailing and delivery drivers can access vehicles and repay loans through earnings made on platforms like Uber and Glovo.

This approach provides scalable solutions for informal economies and opens access to income-generating assets in regions where vehicle ownership is often out of reach.

Ladi reasoned that it is entrepreneurs’ responsibility to link company’s success to social progress, addressing the main challenges of communities.

His wish was to solve the unemployment that has been plaguing Nigeria’s youth, lingering at 54 percent a decade ago.

As co-founding CEO Ladi explained at a start-up festival, “By providing financial services, we wanted to turn dreams into a reality.”

Within its first year, it raised 23 million dollars from Speedinvest and Left-Lane Capital, lifting total funding to 68.2 million dollars. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) soon joined with a 20 million dollars investment.

By 2022, the company had raised over 115 million dollars, expanded into five countries, including the UK, Egypt, and the UAE, and attracted 20 million dollars from the British International Investment. These milestones quickly positioned Moove as a mobility-fintech powerhouse.

The momentum continued. In January 2025, Moove acquired Brazil-based Kovi, marking a bold push into Latin America. Today, the company has a footprint across Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas, cementing its status as a global reference point for mobility-focused fintech.

Moove is reportedly in talks to raise 300 million dollars in equity which could value the company at over two billion dollars potentially making it one of Africa’s largest startups. Backers include Uber, Mubadala, Palm Drive Capital, LocalGlobe, Latitude, and Speedinvest.

In parallel, Moove has partnered with Alphabet’s Waymo to roll out autonomous-driving fleets in the US, securing more than one billion dollars in debt financing. Revenue has surged from 50 million dollars valued at 750million dollars in 2024 to nearly 400 million dollars in annualized recurring revenue by late 2025, with the company reaching EBITDA break-even in September 2024, reports suggest.

Moove’s rise reflects Nigeria’s growing role as a tech hub. Africa’s most populous country has produced several fintech unicorns, including Flutterwave and Interswitch, powered by a young, tech-savvy population. Ride-hailing, mobile payments, and entertainment platforms are booming.

It shows the growing opportunity for tech-startups on the continent, which has a large and growing population of young people increasingly using technology.

Yet the landscape remains fraught with obstacles. Nigerian startups face, Weak corporate governance, leaving them vulnerable to misconduct and legal issues. Infrastructure gaps in internet, electricity, and transport, hindering scale.

Regulatory resistance, particularly in transportation tech, where traditional taxi operators and state authorities often push back, Limited funding access compared to mature ecosystems, restricting innovation.

WeeTracker estimates Nigeria’s startup failure rate at over 61 percent, revealing the volatility of the market.

Despite these challenges, Nigerian entrepreneurs are adapting. Stronger governance structures, mentorship, and investor confidence are slowly reshaping the ecosystem. For Moove, the journey is far from over.

As Ladi advises aspiring founders: “Don’t look for the big idea, but for the problem. If all of us focus on solving a problem, then we can actually change the world.

Over 90 percent of Africa’s investment in tech is won by just four countries: Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa. Unperturbed by the COVID-19 pandemic, international investors have continued to pour money into the African continent’s start-up scene; however, this influx of capital is not being distributed evenly.

Nigeria, with its GDP of roughly 449billion dollars and population of 232.7 million, is projected to be the third largest country by population in the world by 2050.

This makes Nigeria an attractive location for start-up investment inflows. Likewise, Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa boast some of the largest economies in Africa, with 404 billion dollars, 110billion dollars and 420 billion dollars GDP respectively.

Moove’s trajectory, from Lagos to London, Cairo to Dubai, illustrates both the promise and peril of African innovation. With a potential IPO on the horizon and a valuation that could soon cross the unicorn threshold, the startup is not just financing vehicles; it is powering a new narrative for Nigerian tech on the global stage.

As Porter and Kramer argued, lasting success lies in the overlap between business and society. Moove’s story is a case study in that philosophy: a company that emerged from failure, asked “why,” and turned the answer into a model that just might reshape the future of mobility worldwide.