Naran, a mobility fintech startup founded by two former Yango executives, has secured $10 million in equity and debt financing from UAE-based investment firm Landel. The capital will support the expansion of Naran's vehicle financing operations across Africa and Latin America, including fleet growth in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Colombia, and Peru. The funding will also enable the company's entry into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) market and support the rollout of new fintech products.

Founded in 2025 by Bayaskhalan Alexeev and Alexander Gubarev, Naran targets a structural gap in Africa's rapidly expanding ride-hailing and delivery economy. Many drivers have access to customers and digital platforms but cannot afford the vehicles required to work. The company enters a category that has attracted notable investor interest across emerging markets, with firms such as Moove, which has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to finance vehicles for ride-hailing drivers in Africa and beyond, demonstrating the scale of demand for asset-backed mobility financing.

Rather than requiring drivers to purchase vehicles upfront, Naran uses a rent-to-own model that allows mobility entrepreneurs to access cars and motorcycles under agreements lasting 12 to 60 months. The company buys vehicles directly from manufacturers and partners with platforms such as Yango and inDrive to deploy financed vehicles into active service. These platform partnerships are critical to the model: by plugging financed vehicles directly into active ride-hailing networks, Naran can help drivers start generating income immediately while platforms expand their available supply of drivers—a bottleneck that companies like Uber, Bolt, and inDrive have publicly identified as a constraint on growth in emerging markets.

Beyond vehicle provision, Naran has built proprietary fleet-management technology that handles driver onboarding, payment schedules, vehicle usage tracking, telematics, and maintenance across multiple markets. The system enables Naran to monitor its financed assets while giving ride-hailing companies visibility into vehicle performance.

For drivers, the model offers a path from usage to ownership: those unable to buy a car outright can enter a long-term agreement, generate income, and work toward acquiring the vehicle. For ride-hailing platforms, a larger pool of financed vehicles translates into more available drivers—a critical factor as the industry scales in emerging markets.

Naran projects that ride-hailing users in Africa will reach 268 million by 2029, noting that fewer than 20% of potential users currently access such services. Meeting that demand will require a substantial increase in available vehicles and drivers.

The company also plans to offer its fleet-management technology to third-party operators as a software-as-a-service product. Additionally, it intends to provide financing to fleet operators seeking to scale and may acquire operators when strategically viable. These initiatives position Naran as a broader infrastructure provider for the mobility sector rather than solely a vehicle financier—a strategy that mirrors a wider trend of mobility companies monetizing proprietary technology alongside their core operations.

Access to financing remains a particularly pressing issue in Africa, where informal employment is widespread and traditional credit is difficult to obtain. According to the International Labour Organisation, nearly 88% of jobs in sub-Saharan Africa are informal, leaving many individuals with irregular incomes or limited credit histories unable to secure vehicle loans.

Naran contends that data accumulated from repayment histories and vehicle usage can help bridge this gap. Each financed vehicle generates information that could underpin future asset-backed financial products. The MENA expansion adds a region where ride-hailing adoption has grown steadily and where governments in several countries have introduced regulatory frameworks for digital mobility services.

With Landel's backing, Naran aims to fund additional vehicles while building out its integrated financial and technology platform. The company has set a target of operating in 10 countries by 2030, creating 30,000 income opportunities, and financing 10,000 cars and 20,000 motorcycles. It currently operates in Côte d'Ivoire, Colombia, Senegal, and Peru, with plans to enter Paraguay by September 2026.

The central challenge for Africa's mobility market remains whether vehicle financing can keep pace with rising demand. Growing numbers of people want to participate in ride-hailing and delivery services, but many are excluded without affordable access to vehicles. Naran's approach combines financing, fleet technology, and platform partnerships to address this constraint.