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Nigerian Moove Acquires Brazilian Kovi to Expand Latin American Operations

Nigerian Moove Acquires Brazilian Kovi to Expand Latin American Operations
Image Source: Moove Website
  • Nigerian mobility startup Moove now fully owns Brazilian car rental startup Kovi.
  • Moove will keep the Kovi brand operating in Brazil and Mexico with plans to expand further across Latin America. 
  • The acquisition will aid Moove in expanding its AI-driven mobility to its entire business line. 

Moove and Kovi

Nigerian mobility fintech startup Moove acquires Brazilian car rental startup Kovi to expand its Latin American operations.  

The value of the acquisition is not disclosed but Moove confirmed that it was an all share transaction. Thus, Moove now fully owns Kovi. The acquisition brings together two companies that tackle the same challenge of providing financing solutions for rideshare drivers. 

“I met the founders many years back when they were scaling their business in Africa, and I was immediately impressed by their purpose-driven approach, which is also a perfect match to our culture.”

Kovi CEO Adhemar Milani Neto

In the past year, Moove secured USD 100 million in series B funding with participation from Uber and Mubadala. They aimed to use the funding to expand their services globally and focus on electric vehicles.

The Acquisition

When the Brazilian antitrust authority approved the acquisition, Kovi will continue to operate under its brand with no changes to the executive or management teams. Meanwhile, Moove will keep the Kovi brand operating in its existing markets in Brazil and Mexico with plans to expand further across Latin America. 

 “Kovi is one of the top two players in Brazil. So we have not just entered or strengthened our presence in the Latin American market but also put ourselves in a top-two position in the largest single market in Latin America through this acquisition.”

Ladi Delano, Moove co-founder and co-CEO

Additionally, the acquisition increases the number of vehicles in Moove’s fleet to 36,000 and expands its operations to 19 cities across six continents.  With this, the mobility startup aims to build a globally competitively sized share-fleet. 

Kovi, part of Y Combinator’s W19 batch, was founded in 2018 with the goal of aiding car rentals for ride hailing but has since expanded to include food delivery workers. Its goal was to make vehicle ownership more accessible in Brazil. 

Moove offers vehicle supply to ride-hailing platforms. This includes its flagship Drive-to-Own product, a taxi and employment model and an autonomous vehicle (AV) line. Their AV business line involved AI-driven mobility with plans for this to extend across their entire business. This includes optimizing traditional ride-hailing services and improving fleet management. 

The Kovi acquisition will aid them in expanding their AI technology.  According to the Moove co-founder and co-CEO Ladi Delano, Kovi’s proprietary technology and algorithms will “complement and strengthen our existing Moove AI mobility strategy and ensure that we can start to deliver an improved service and product to our customers around the world.”

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