Moove, the mobility financing company that is very popular in Nigeria, has announced that it is ending its operations in Nigeria after six years. The announcement came on October 8, 2026, marking the end of an era for a company many Nigerians had come to see as a symbol of homegrown innovation.
Uber, the global ride-hailing giant and Moove’s most important partner, shut down its own operations in Nigeria on September 2, 2026, after twelve years of service. For many observers, Moove’s exit was the inevitable aftershock of a much bigger earthquake.
How Moove Won the Hearts of Nigerian Drivers
Moove was founded in Lagos in 2020 by Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi. The two entrepreneurs saw a problem thousands of Nigerians faced every day: hardworking people wanted to earn a living driving, but they couldn’t get the vehicles or financing they needed to start. Banks were unwilling to lend to gig workers, and the cost of buying a car outright was far beyond the reach of most people.
Moove stepped into that gap with a simple but powerful idea. The company would buy vehicles and give them to drivers under a model it called Rental and Drive-to-Own. Drivers would pay a portion of their weekly earnings to Moove, and over time, they would work towards owning the vehicles outright. It was a hand-up, not just a handout.
The model worked. Moove grew from 76 vehicles in Lagos to a global company operating 42,000 vehicles across 29 cities worldwide. In Nigeria alone, more than 9,000 customers used Moove’s Drive-to-Own and rental products, generating approximately N57 billion in revenue through vehicles that Moove financed. For thousands of Nigerian families, Moove was not just a company. It was the reason there was food on the table and school fees paid.
The Deal That Uber’s Departure Broke
To understand why Moove had to leave Nigeria, one must understand how deeply the company’s Nigerian business depended on Uber. Moove did not just partner with Uber. It built its entire Nigerian lending model around Uber’s platform.
When Moove gave a car to a driver, it needed to know that the driver would pay back the money. Uber’s earnings data helped Moove decide who was creditworthy and how much they could afford to repay each week. Moove even shared offices with Uber in Lagos and other African cities, and it kept its drivers on Uber Go, the budget ride category. The two companies were so closely tied that Uber became an investor in Moove, participating in a $100 million funding round in March 2024.
When Uber announced it was leaving Nigeria, it did not just close an app. It removed the very foundation on which Moove’s Nigerian business stood. Without Uber’s earnings data, Moove could no longer assess drivers’ creditworthiness or collect repayments in the same way. The business model that had worked so well for six years simply could not survive.
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A Thank You Worth Thirty-Five Billion Naira
What Moove did next surprised many people. Instead of simply packing up and leaving drivers stranded, the company announced a “Thank You Nigeria” initiative. Under this plan, eligible customers who were operating Moove-financed vehicles would receive full ownership of those vehicles at no additional cost, effective from October 1, 2026. The total value of the vehicles being transferred was estimated at approximately N35 billion.
In addition to the vehicle transfers, Moove announced that every one of its Nigerian staff members would receive a free car as a sign of appreciation for their contributions to the company. The company said it would work directly with affected customers and employees to complete the ownership transfers as it wound down its Nigerian operations.
Ladi Delano, Moove’s co-founder, co-CEO and advisory board chairman, described the exit as an emotional moment. “Nigeria is where Moove began, and everything we have built since carries something of Lagos with it,” he said. He explained that the company’s first customers trusted Moove when it was still just an idea, and that trust made everything that followed possible.
Why the Business Could No Longer Stand
While Moove did not explicitly state a single reason for its exit, the economic realities were clear to anyone paying attention. Nigeria’s operating environment had become increasingly difficult for mobility businesses. Fuel prices had risen sharply, making it more expensive to keep vehicles on the road. The naira had weakened significantly, and Moove had funded part of its Nigerian fleet with dollar-denominated debt while its drivers earned in naira. When the currency fell, it hit Moove’s pricing hard.
There was also the matter of changing priorities. Moove had recently raised $250 million in a Series C funding round, achieving a valuation of $2.1 billion and becoming one of Africa’s unicorns. The company’s future focus was shifting towards robotaxi depots and autonomous mobility infrastructure in the United States. Nigeria, which had once been the heart of the business, no longer represented the same opportunity.
A Moove representative told Bloomberg that the company was planning to “conclude operations in this market,” adding that it did not have more details to share at that time.
What This Means for Nigerian Drivers and the Wider Economy
For the thousands of Nigerian drivers who relied on Moove’s financing model, the news brought a mixture of relief and uncertainty. The transfer of eligible vehicles into their ownership provided some comfort, as many would now own the cars they had been paying for. But the broader picture was troubling.
Moove’s exit, coming so soon after Uber’s departure, raised serious questions about the sustainability of mobility businesses in Nigeria’s current economic climate. An economist, Marcel Okeke, told Daily Trust that rising fuel prices had made the business unsustainable and expressed concern about the implications of rising operating costs for businesses and individuals across the country. The exit also reshaped Nigeria’s app-based mobility sector, leaving Bolt and inDrive as the primary operators in a market that once hosted some of the world’s biggest names in ride-hailing.
A Story That Will Always Begin in Lagos
Despite the pain of the exit, Moove’s leadership made it clear that Nigeria would always hold a special place in the company’s heart. “As we continue to grow internationally, we will do everything we can to make Nigeria proud and to build a lasting global success story that never forgets where it began,” Delano said. “Wherever Moove goes next, our story will always start in Lagos”.
For Nigerian entrepreneurs and business leaders, the Moove story carries a difficult but important lesson. Building a business that depends heavily on a single partner, no matter how strong that partner may be, carries enormous risk. When that partner leaves, everything built upon it can come tumbling down. But the Moove story also carries a message of hope. A company that started small in Lagos grew into a global unicorn worth $2.1 billion. The seed that was planted in Nigerian soil bore fruit across the world, even if the tree itself has now been uprooted from its original ground.
