Moove, the mobility company founded in Lagos in 2020, has raised $250 million at a $2.1 billion valuation to expand its autonomous vehicle business — a round that ranks among the largest ever raised by a company with African founding origins, and one whose expansion plans do not include an African market. The Series C was led by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company and co-led by Woven Capital, Toyota’s growth fund, and Ion Pacific. BlueCrest Capital Management, Sona Asset Management and The Raptor Group joined, alongside existing backers including BlackRock, MUFG, Franklin Templeton, Uber, Left Lane, Silverbacks Holdings and the Ontario Power Generation Pension Plan. The funding will support autonomous fleet ownership and what Moove calls “Nests” — robotics-first depot infrastructure where autonomous fleets are charged, serviced, maintained and orchestrated for continuous operation. Moove expects to grow its autonomous vehicle workforce by more than 220% by year-end, from roughly 150 employees to about 500. The infrastructure argument Moove’s thesis is that autonomy is an infrastructure problem rather than purely a software one. Scaling driverless services requires capital, fleet ownership, charging infrastructure, maintenance, operational orchestration and around-the-clock city-level execution — the layer Moove has spent five years building for human-driven ride-hailing and is now extending to autonomous systems. “Every major technology revolution becomes an infrastructure race,” said Ladi Delano, co-founder, co-CEO and advisory board chairman. “The internet required data centres. AI required compute. Autonomy requires fleets, charging, maintenance, data systems and 24/7 operations in every city.” Through its partnership with Waymo, Moove is already one of the leading third-party autonomous fleet operators, with live operations in Phoenix and Miami and London confirmed as its first international expansion. The scale behind the pitch is real. Moove employs 3,300 people, operates approximately 42,000 vehicles across 29 cities in 13 countries, and has reached