UAE-based mobility fintech company Naran has raised $10 million from UAE investment firm Landel through a round combining equity and debt financing. The company will use the funding to expand its fleet in Colombia, Peru, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire, enter new markets, including the Middle East and North Africa region, and develop new financial products.
Naran was founded in 2025 by Bayaskhalan Alexeev and Alexander Gubarev, who previously worked at Yango and contributed to launching and scaling ride-hailing operations in Latin America and Africa. The company provides lease-to-own financing for cars and motorcycles, targeting independent ride-hailing and delivery drivers.
Vehicle Financing and Building a Credit History
Naran purchases vehicles directly from manufacturers and then enables drivers to own them through repayment plans lasting between 12 and 60 months. It also collaborates with ride-hailing and delivery platforms, including Yango and inDrive, to help drivers who have difficulty accessing traditional banking services obtain vehicles for work.
The value of the model is not limited to providing a vehicle; the company believes that each repayment contract can help create the driver’s first formal repayment record. This record, together with the financed asset, forms the basis of Naran’s ambition to develop a broader asset-backed financing platform in emerging markets.
From Fleet Financing to Software
Naran has developed a proprietary fleet-management system that supports its operations across different markets, from driver registration and payment scheduling to monitoring vehicle use, remote communications, and maintenance. The company plans to make this technology available to third-party fleet operators under a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, while providing tools for internal automation and asset-backed debt financing to expand fleets.
The company is also considering acquiring some fleet operators when the economics are suitable. It plans to launch operations in Paraguay in September 2026, while by 2030 it is targeting a presence in 10 countries, creating 30,000 income-generating opportunities and operating a fleet of 10,000 cars and 20,000 motorcycles.
Why Does This Funding Matter?
The expansion of ride-hailing and delivery services in emerging markets depends in part on drivers’ ability to access suitable vehicles, an ability that may be limited by irregular incomes or limited credit histories. Naran’s model therefore combines asset financing, operational management, and integration with demand platforms, rather than simply providing a traditional loan.
For ride-hailing and delivery platforms, the company says that the financed vehicles are linked to drivers who have been verified and listed on the platforms, with fleet-usage data shared with partners to increase vehicle operating hours. According to figures cited in the company’s statement, around 88% of the workforce in sub-Saharan Africa works in the informal sector, while mobility challenges in cities such as Abidjan may reduce national income by between 4% and 5%.
Bayaskhalan Alexeev, CEO and co-founder of Naran, said the company aims to address the difficulty ride-hailing and delivery drivers face in obtaining financing and connect this with increasing the supply of drivers available to platforms. Landel, for its part, described the model as being based on revenue-generating vehicles connected to a GPS system, with daily cash flows and a scalable technology infrastructure.