Tech in Africa
The traditional process of buying, financing, and insuring vehicles across emerging markets is quite the challenge. This actually defeats the entire purpose of building an all-around car purchase experience. South Africa’s FlexClub, has received an injection of $5 million to improve their driving experience in these markets.
FlexClub was founded in 2019 by Rudolf Vavruch, Marlon Gallardo, and Tinashe Ruzane. The company is an online marketplace connecting customers with long-term cars on a subscription-based model.
In the same year, FlexClub closed a $1.2 million seed round led by CRE Venture Capital. TechCrunch reports that Ruzane, the company CEO, accumulated $5 million in both equity and debt in a seed funding round raising the total investment to $6 million. The company will use this funding to revamp its technology offering to protect and limit the exposure of its partners to risk.
Kindred Ventures is the key investor behind companies specialized in mobility such as Virgin Hyperloop, Postmates, and Uber. Other VC investors are Endeavor and CRE Ventures. Other notable investors are Matt Mullenweg (WordPress founder), Federico Ranero (KAVAK COO), and Tariq Zaid of Getaround and Shopify. Ron Pragides who formerly worked in Salesforce and Twitter also participated.
We earlier covered how FlexClub plans to partner with Avis to expand its Drive Now, Buy Later policy.
Also read: FlexClub partners with Avis to expand its ‘Drive Now, Buy Later’ car subscriptions
