It’s Tuesday, and today we’re focusing on Anda, a mobility business from Angola. Founded by Sergio Tati and Joerg Nuehrmann in 2022, the company recently announced a $3 million seed round co-led by Breega and Speedinvest.

In many ways, Angola’s mobility industry exhibits traits similar to other countries on the continent. Angola has 1.2 million moto-taxi drivers, which implies a 7.5% share of the labor force. That is a massive number, but it is actually on par with other African countries. In Kenya, the figure is 7.6%; in Nigeria, it is 7.1%. In other words, in these markets, motorcycles are in many ways a foundation of the labor force.

The reasons behind this moto-taxi dominance are simple. Low private vehicle ownership, combined with weak public transportation, create a large gap that motorcycles fill.

The most recent data we have is from 2015, suggesting Angola has roughly 25 vehicles per 1,000 people, which is in line with other African countries. Second, public transportation is unreliable and unstructured, creating a second layer of unmet demand. Again, this is nothing new for the continent. I talked about the troubles of the public transportation market in my BuuPass article. The informal taxi market is characterized by variable prices, low safety, and an unreliable customer experience.

The labor market looks the same: transport demand is informal, and the supply of drivers is informal as well.

Considering that under 10% of the total labor force is formally employed, most, if not all, riders are working informally. Kenya, Senegal, DRC, and others face the same labor informality issues. This means most riders do not have access to financing, insurance, or even formal training. To put this into perspective, in many African countries insurance penetration is under 10%.

There is also the issue of low internet penetration. Just 39.3% of the population has internet access, a challenge shared by many nations in sub-Saharan Africa. That matters because if you bring a solely technological solution to the market, it won’t work, since the app economy is barely developed.

However, Angola is its own country. While the key metrics look similar to the continent as a whole, there are local quirks and features that add shape to the mobility sector.

For one, moto-taxi ownership is substantially lower than in other countries in the region. Some estimates suggest that only 5% of riders own their bikes. In East Africa, for example, that number is closer to 30%. Such low ownership has two principal consequences:

Another important factor is that Angola is highly urbanized compared to other African countries. About 68% of the population lives in cities, and 37% of the urban population is concentrated in Luanda. This leads to both massive and highly concentrated demand. This urban concentration was shaped in large part by a 26-year-long civil war. Millions were forced to move from rural areas to cities, resulting in unplanned residential zones and fragmented urban infrastructure.

Finally, there are fuel subsidies. For a long time, fuel prices in Angola were lower than in many other African countries. In 2011, for example, they were 67% lower than the sub-Saharan African average. After reforms, however, fuel prices jumped sharply: 87.5% for gasoline and 48% for diesel. This led to a 33% increase in fares. According to the World Bank, the cost of the price rise was fully absorbed by consumers. There is also a view that riders were overcompensated for the increase in fuel costs. Regardless, these measures destabilized what had previously been a relatively stable market.

Anda is a mobility platform offering asset financing, ride hailing, delivery services. It combines an asset financing model, similar to Gigmile, with a more traditional ride-hailing service. There is a driver-facing product and a customer-facing product. While the company initially started with the customer-facing side, the team quickly realized that a more pressing constraint was the lack of access to vehicles that I mentioned earlier. Since this is now the main focus of the business, I will start with drivers.

Drivers can join the platform either by downloading the app and registering an account or by visiting Anda Academy in Luanda and completing a manual registration.

Three core offerings make up Anda’s product for drivers, all emerging as direct responses to drivers’ needs:

Anda works with both B2C and B2B customers.

Much of the product resembles other ride-hailing solutions, with one important difference: how customers are onboarded. And this is a great example of local context shaping product design.

While there is an app, not every city resident has reliable internet access. Even when they do, they may not have enough storage space on their phones, or connectivity in their area may be unstable.

To address this, Anda offers customers several alternatives to app-based ordering:

Safe Stops are the most interesting part here. Anda operates several dedicated stops around Luanda where customers can physically approach drivers. The driver then creates an account for the customer, effectively digitizing them regardless of whether they own a smartphone or use the app.

All rides are insured, and when combined with trained drivers and GPS tracking, this significantly improves safety and trust.

With the latest investment round, Anda plans to further develop its driver credit-scoring system and expand the Safe Stops network, while also moving into electric vehicles. The company is starting with motorcycles and tricycles, which are better suited to the local market. Battery-swapping infrastructure is already developing, while EV charging for cars remains at a very early stage.

If I had to use just two words to describe Anda’s model, they would be flexibility and predictability.

Flexibility shows up in flexible payment plans, mixed use cases for drivers operating on the same network, and multi-channel booking options for customers. Predictability comes from standardized driver onboarding, GPS tracking, insurance coverage, defined pickup points, and physical asset branding.

Together, these elements introduce structure into a previously chaotic market, while keeping the offering easy to interact with. Both sides of the marketplace, riders and end customers, retain optionality at different stages of their journey.

Anda is effectively building a mobility operating system. On the supply side, it generates reliable capacity by ensuring that drivers have access to income-generating assets, are trained in a standardized way, and can focus on the core task of driving. On the demand side, customers represent trusted demand. They trust Anda because of the safety layer it provides, because access barriers are lower, and because pricing is more transparent.

The system is further extended by allowing third parties to join the platform and provide financing to riders, with those partners taking a fee on each transaction. This means the company is not constrained by its own balance sheet and can use external capital to expand the driver fleet more quickly.

The core monetization mechanism is the drive-to-own financing margin. Drivers make regular payments to Anda through earnings generated on the platform. For business customers, Anda provides drivers at a fixed price of $400 or more per month.

I have not been able to confirm whether the company earns any margin on individual rides or delivery transactions. It might, but taking a commission would slow down how quickly drivers can repay their loans, so that may not be part of the model. Once the loan is fully repaid, however, I would expect some form of ongoing platform fee to apply.

Financing risk is the main concern. The company needs to get as many vehicles on the road as possible. That increases the number of rides completed and, in turn, speeds up how quickly drivers can repay their loans. If, as the platform scales, unit economics begin to deteriorate because less reliable drivers are onboarded or because the company overinvests in assets, the model can break down.

There’s a delicate balance here. To grow, Anda has to invest. But if it invests too quickly, there’s significant downside risk.

If that does not happen, the level of lock-in Anda creates is unlike that of most mobility businesses.

For both drivers and customers, the company benefits from a dual lock-in effect. The first is familiar from traditional ride-hailing platforms: supply attracts demand, which in turn attracts more supply. The second is unique. For drivers, lock-in comes from financing. They need to remain on the platform to access and eventually own the asset. For customers, the lock-in is less explicit, but the cumulative effect of branding, safety guarantees, and physical presence creates an emotional and practical attachment to the service.

Together, these mechanisms reinforce long-term platform usage on both sides of the marketplace.

What’s the one lesson investors and founders can take away from Anda?

Vertical integration is not always the answer. In theory, it sounds compelling, but in practice it often requires operational capabilities that a company may not actually possess.

In some cases, however, vertical integration strengthens the core business. That’s the case with Anda, where the ride-hailing platform generates consistent demand for drivers, which in turn accelerates loan repayments and reinforces the overall model.