Nigerian Mobility-Tech Startup MAX Secures $31M In Series B Round, Set To Expand Across Africa

Nigerian mobility tech startup Metro Africa Xpress Inc. (MAX)has secured $31 million in Series B funding. The latest funding round was led by the global private equity platform, Lightrock, making its first investment in the African mobility space.

Through their Digital Africa initiative, the UAE-based international venture capital firm Global Ventures also took part in the round, as did existing investors Novastar Ventures and Proparco, the French development finance institution.

MAX currently designs and assembles its line of electric motorcycles. The firm says, “beyond solving the mobility challenges in Africa, we are driven by a dedication to heal our planet and make our environment greener by reducing carbon emission that goes into the earth’s atmosphere.”

The statement on the firm’s website, adds “to this effect, we are pioneering Electric Vehicles in Africa as an eco-friendly and equally effective means of mobility.”

It aims to use this money to enter the Ghana and Egypt market by the end of the first quarter of 2022 and other additional markets in Francophone, East, and Southern Africa by the close of the same year.

Adetayo Bamiduro and Chinedu Azodoh – the company’s founders – aim to extend vehicle financing credit to over 100,000 drivers in the next two years.

“We spent time understanding drivers’ operations, and it became apparent to us that most of them don’t own the vehicles they use,” Njoya told TechCrunch.

“It became clear that the fundamental issue that drivers face is consistent access to vehicles. And that is when we realized that if we are to be successful at solving the challenge of mobility across the continent, we have first to address the issue of vehicle access.”