A Fourth Major Round in Six Years, and the Biggest Yet
Moove, the mobility company that has built its business by financing vehicles for ride-hailing drivers and is now pivoting toward autonomous fleet infrastructure, announced on August 5, 2026, that it had raised $250 million in a Series C round at a $2.1 billion valuation. Mubadala Investment Company led the round, co-led with Woven Capital, Toyota's growth fund, and Ion Pacific, according to Mubadala's announcement.
The round also brought in BlueCrest Capital Management and Sona Capital, alongside existing backers BlackRock, MUFG, Franklin Templeton, Uber, Left Lane Capital, Square Associates, The Latest Ventures, and the Ontario Power Generation Pension Plan, The National reported. Moove was founded in Nigeria in 2020 by Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi and has since relocated its headquarters to the UAE, where it is now Uber's largest global fleet partner and runs autonomous vehicle operations through a partnership with Waymo.
The company says it now operates roughly 42,000 vehicles across 29 cities in 13 countries, with annual recurring revenue of about $420 million, up from an initial launch of 76 vehicles in Lagos five years ago, per the Mubadala release.
Moove has now raised roughly $694 million across 17 funding rounds since it launched in 2020, according to Crunchbase data cited by The National. The August round alone is larger than the company's three prior disclosed equity rounds combined.
What Changed Since the Last Raise
Moove's previous major round was a $100 million Series B in March 2024, which valued the company at $750 million and brought in Uber as a new investor alongside Mubadala, per the original BusinessWire announcement. Between that round and the Series C, Moove's valuation nearly tripled, climbing from $750 million to $2.1 billion in roughly 29 months.
The jump tracks a shift in what Moove actually sells. The 2024 round was about scaling revenue-based vehicle financing to 16 markets. The 2026 round focuses on building physical infrastructure for autonomous fleets, including what Moove calls "Nests," robotics-first depots where autonomous vehicles are charged, serviced, and managed, according to Gulf Business. The company plans to grow its autonomous vehicle workforce from about 150 employees to roughly 500 by the end of 2026, a jump of more than 220 percent.
The table below sets out Moove's four largest disclosed funding events since 2022, built from DSD's cross-referencing of Mubadala, BusinessWire, TechCrunch, and Gulf Business disclosures.
| Date | Round | Amount raised | Valuation | Lead investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 2022 | Series A2 | $105M ($65M equity, $40M debt) | Not disclosed | Speedinvest, Left Lane Capital, thelatest.ventures |
| Aug 2023 | Growth round | $76M ($28M equity, $10M debt, $38M prior undisclosed) | $550M | Mubadala, BlackRock |
| Mar 2024 | Series B | $100M | $750M | Uber, Mubadala |
| Aug 2026 | Series C | $250M | $2.1B | Mubadala, Woven Capital, Ion Pacific |
How the Round Fits DSD's Own MENA Funding Tracker
DSD's own H1 2026 MENA funding review found that regional venture funding fell 22 percent year on year to $1.35 billion in the first half of 2026, even as the UAE held onto 66 percent of that total, or $895 million. More than 60 percent of the UAE figure came from just three deals: CargoX's $250 million round, Mal's $230 million round, and CNTXT AI's $60 million round.
Moove's Series C closed after that H1 window ended, but at exactly $250 million it would have matched CargoX as the single largest UAE round tracked so far in 2026 had it landed a few weeks earlier. That reinforces the concentration pattern DSD already flagged: a small number of large, later-stage rounds are increasingly propping up the UAE's headline funding numbers, rather than broad early-stage activity.
Ten deals accounted for 58 percent of all MENA funding in H1 2026, per MAGNiTT data DSD reported in July. Moove's round adds a fourth mega-deal to that pattern in the weeks since, and one of the few with heavy international, non-MENA investor participation at a time when foreign capital's regional share had dropped to 19 percent.
What the Capital Is Actually For
Moove said the new funding will support autonomous fleet ownership, the build-out of its Nests depot network, new market launches, and the workforce expansion mentioned above. The company is also supporting the operational groundwork for Waymo's planned autonomous ride service in London, expected in 2026 pending regulatory approval, per Gulf Business.
Moove co-founder and co-CEO Ladi Delano framed the round as an infrastructure bet rather than a technology one, telling Gulf Business that "autonomy requires fleets, charging, maintenance, data systems" in every city it operates in.
Why It Matters for Founders and Investors
- Institutional appetite for capital-intensive, infrastructure-heavy plays anchored in the UAE remains strong even as broader MENA deal count shrinks, which matters for founders pitching hardware- or operations-heavy models rather than pure software.
- Moove's workforce expansion from 150 to 500 signals near-term hiring and vendor demand around autonomous vehicle operations, maintenance, and depot infrastructure, an opening for UAE-based suppliers and recruiters in that supply chain.
- The round is a data point for any founder benchmarking their own valuation step-up: Moove's roughly tripled in under two and a half years on the back of a business model pivot, not just growth in the existing one.
For more on how far that capital is spreading beyond mega-rounds, DSD's tracker on Hub71's AED 500,000 relocation package for AI startups and its coverage of AVELIN AI's $3.7 million pre-seed raise both show early-stage capital is still moving, just at a much smaller scale.
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