Flexclub, a South African startup that links customers seeking convenient access to long-term cars with partners that sell car subscriptions, has received an additional $5 million in funding to boost drivers’ experiences in these markets.
“When we first started, we were focused on phase one of our strategy, which came from our knowledge about ride-hailing drivers because of our careers at Uber,” Tinashe Ruzane said. “We wanted to help a community of ride-hailing drivers that had been excluded from accessing cars. But right now, we’ve built the product to work for anyone and not just ride-hailing drivers.”
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Here Is What You Need To Know
- Investors in this round include Kindred Ventures — its lead investor — which had previously invested in mobility-first companies like Postmates, Uber and Virgin Hyperloop. CRE Venture Capital and Endeavor are two other venture capital firms. The round included angel investors such as Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress; Federico Ranero, the COO of KAVAK; Tariq Zaid, formerly of Shopify and Getaround; and Ron Pragides, formerly of Twitter and Salesforce.
- In 2019, CRE Venture Capital led a $1.2 million seed round for the company.
- This $5 million (in equity and debt) is a seed extension round, according to Ruzane, the company’s CEO, taking FlexClub’s overall investment to over $6 million.
- The money will be used to develop the company’s infrastructure, which prevents and reduces partners’ risk exposure, according to the company.
A Look At What The Startup Does
Founded in 2019, by Marlon Gallardo, Rudolf Vavruch and Tinashe Ruzane, FlexClub connects customers seeking convenient access to long-term cars with partners that sell car subscriptions.
The startup has operations in South Africa and Mexico. It maintains partnership with with Uber in both countries, where it helps Uber’s drivers to subscribe for cars.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer
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