Naran raises $10 million to finance delivery and transport platform drivers in emerging markets and prepares to enter the Middle East and North Africa

Fintech company Naran, which specializes in mobility solutions, raised $10 million in equity-and-debt financing from UAE investment firm Landel, in a move that aims to expand its vehicle fleet and provide financing solutions that enable passenger-transport and delivery-platform drivers to own vehicles through lease-to-own options. The Emirati company was founded in 2025 by Baisakhlan Alexiev and Alexander Gubariev, former Yango executives with operational experience launching and scaling passenger-transport services across Latin America and Africa.

Naran focuses on offering flexible financing ranging from 12 to 60 months for cars and motorcycles, targeting drivers who struggle to obtain traditional bank loans because of irregular income or lack of credit history. The company buys vehicles directly from manufacturers and then partners with major transport and delivery platforms such as Yango and InDrive, allowing these platforms to be supplied with qualified, certified drivers operating financed vehicles, while sharing fleet-usage data to ensure increased road-time.

Unified technology architecture for fleet management and operational automation

The company has built its own technology platform for fleet management, through which it runs all operational processes across its markets, from driver registration and payment scheduling to usage tracking and maintenance. Naran intends to open this software suite to other operators as a software-as-a-service product, in addition to offering asset-backed debt financing to support the expansion of external fleets, turning local operators from competitors into potential customers.

The company is currently active in Colombia, Peru, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, and plans to expand into Paraguay by September 2026 as a prelude to entering new markets, including the Middle East and North Africa. These expansions come amid a business environment where informal employment in sub-Saharan Africa reaches roughly 88%, where mobility constraints in cities such as Abu Jan reduce national income by about 4% to 5%, while data from Oliver Wyman indicate that passenger-transport drivers in Africa earn up to 130% more than comparable skilled jobs.

Bridging the financing gap and addressing vehicle supply shortages on delivery platforms

Baisakhlan Alexiev, chief executive officer and co-founder of Naran, explained that the model aims to enable mobility-solution drivers to achieve vehicle ownership, increase their earnings and attain financial stability, while tackling the biggest obstacle faced by delivery and transport platforms in emerging markets, the shortage of vehicles and drivers. Aidar Musin, managing partner at Landel, noted that the financing relies on an operational model supported by vehicles equipped with location-tracking technology, providing tangible assets and daily cash flows that ensure unit-economy sustainability and facilitate system expansion.

Expansion targets and financial inclusion impact

Naran aims, by 2030, to be present in ten countries, create 30,000 income opportunities and deploy a fleet of 10,000 cars and 20,000 motorcycles, coinciding with forecasts that the shared-mobility market in Africa will grow to around $8 billion by 2030 and generate more than 550,000 additional income opportunities. This pathway provides an opportunity to link UAE-originated innovation with capital and create economic flows that cross regional borders.