Afridigest Intelligence: The era of E2E expansion is here

Nigeria’s Moove acquires Brazil’s Kovi

Building a mature, venture-scale company in African markets has historically meant establishing a pan-African platform.

One that delivers key African markets to potential buyers as a single unit (“Africa-on-a-plate”).

But the playbook is changing.

Rather than pursuing a pan-African strategy, companies are increasingly executing an E2E strategy:

Emerging market to emerging market.

In recent years, we've seen:

• Uganda's Asaak enter Mexico — by acquiring a subsidiary of FlexClub

• South Africa's TymeBank/Tyme Group enter the Philippines — via a partnership with the Gokongwei Group/JG Summit Holdings

• Nigeria's LemFi enter India, China, and Pakistan — by hiring senior executives with significant local expertise

And three weeks ago, the news broke that Nigeria's Moove is entering Brazil via the acquisition of car rental platform Kovi, deepening its presence across Latin America.

Building a business across multiple African markets isn't easy, and neither is building one across global growth markets.

But w…