Moove, a fleet management and financing startup founded in Nigeria, has raised $250 million in a Series C round at a $2.1 billion valuation to expand into owning and operating autonomous vehicle fleets. Co-founder Ladi Delano said the company's background financing and managing large human-driven ride-hailing fleets across Africa positioned it well to become the "backbone" of the emerging robotaxi industry, taking on tasks such as vehicle ownership, servicing, cleaning and maintenance that autonomous vehicle developers, manufacturers and marketplaces like Uber are reluctant to handle themselves.

The Dubai-headquartered company, now backed by Mubadala Investment Company alongside co-leads Woven Capital and Ion Pacific, already operates a 42,000-vehicle ride-hailing fleet across 14 countries with 3,300 employees. It is Waymo's fleet operator in Phoenix, Miami and Las Vegas, with London planned, and although it doesn't yet own Waymo's vehicles, it intends to buy them using debt financing and already owns robotaxis from an undisclosed AV developer. The new funding will go towards hiring roughly 350 people and building automated "Nest" depots for round-the-clock vehicle charging and maintenance, with other investors including BlackRock, Uber, MUFG and Franklin Templeton.