Moove, the mobility company founded in Lagos in 2020, has raised $250 million at a $2.1 billion valuation to expand its autonomous vehicle business — a round that ranks among the largest ever raised by a company with African founding origins, and one whose expansion plans do not include an African market.
The Series C was led by Abu Dhabi’s 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 joined, alongside existing backers including BlackRock, MUFG, Franklin Templeton, Uber, Left Lane, Silverbacks Holdings and the Ontario Power Generation Pension Plan.
The funding will support autonomous fleet ownership and what Moove calls “Nests” — robotics-first depot infrastructure where autonomous fleets are charged, serviced, maintained and orchestrated for continuous operation. Moove expects to grow its autonomous vehicle workforce by more than 220% by year-end, from roughly 150 employees to about 500.
The infrastructure argument
Moove’s thesis is that autonomy is an infrastructure problem rather than purely a software one. Scaling driverless services requires capital, fleet ownership, charging infrastructure, maintenance, operational orchestration and around-the-clock city-level execution — the layer Moove has spent five years building for human-driven ride-hailing and is now extending to autonomous systems.
“Every major technology revolution becomes an infrastructure race,” said Ladi Delano, co-founder, co-CEO and advisory board chairman. “The internet required data centres. AI required compute. Autonomy requires fleets, charging, maintenance, data systems and 24/7 operations in every city.”
Through its partnership with Waymo, Moove is already one of the leading third-party autonomous fleet operators, with live operations in Phoenix and Miami and London confirmed as its first international expansion.
The scale behind the pitch is real. Moove employs 3,300 people, operates approximately 42,000 vehicles across 29 cities in 13 countries, and has reached $420 million in annual recurring revenue. It is Uber’s largest global fleet partner, and has grown through acquisitions including Kovi in Brazil and Tokyo Taxi in Japan.
Mubadala’s Ali Eid AlMheiri framed the investment in explicitly national terms. “This is particularly important for the UAE,” he said, describing Mubadala’s interest in platforms that “support economic diversification and strengthen the UAE’s role as a hub for advanced technologies.”
Betty Lee, principal at Woven Capital, said the next wave of mobility is “an infrastructure problem as much as a software one,” and that few companies at Moove’s stage have proven they can operate at its speed across as many markets.
Where the value lands
Delano acknowledged the origin directly. “We started in Lagos with a simple insight: mobility demand is abundant, but supply cannot scale unless capital, technology and operations move together.” He described the UAE as “our anchor,” and characterised the global expansion as “not a departure from our mission” but its fullest expression.
The reading depends on where you sit. Moove has become a genuinely global platform built on an insight formed in Lagos, and its founders remain in control. It is also a company that started with 76 cars in Nigeria, now headquarters in Abu Dhabi, takes anchor capital from an Emirati sovereign fund, and is deploying its autonomous vehicle infrastructure in Phoenix, Miami and London — with no African city named in the expansion.
That pattern is becoming familiar. Vercel acquired Egyptian-founded Stakpak and Ethiopian-founded Better Auth within days of each other last month. Meta acquired Cairo-founded PlayAI last year. Moove is a different case — a relocation rather than an exit, with the founders still building — but it raises the same question iAfrica has been tracking across a run of stories: whether African-founded companies in AI and autonomy end up building continental capability, or become the continent’s most successful exports.
For African policymakers pursuing AI and autonomy strategies, Moove is both proof that the talent produces globally competitive companies, and evidence of where those companies go once they need infrastructure-scale capital.
