The archive · Consumer Apps · Strategic decision · 2018–2025
Gozem's Grab-for-Francophone-Africa bet: Lomé bike hailing grows into a super app
Founded 2018 in Togo as motorcycle ride-hailing, Gozem grew into driver financing, delivery and mobile money across four Francophone countries.
Gozem
What the business is
A super app for Francophone Africa: motorcycle, tricycle and car rides, food and parcel delivery, vehicle financing and mobile money across Togo, Benin, Gabon and Cameroon.
Starting capital：Over $12M raised by Dec 2021 ($7M in three seed tranches plus a $5M Series A); $30M Series B in Feb 2025 split $15M equity / $15M debt, with IFC backing its vehicle-financing program.
How it started
After building companies in Southeast Asia, the French-Singaporean duo Gregory Costamagna and Raphael Dana saw how Grab and Gojek had transformed cities there, and that Francophone Africa — which gets almost none of the money and attention flowing to Nigeria, Kenya or Egypt — had no equivalent. With Emeka Ajene they launched Gozem in Lomé, Togo, in November 2018 as the country's first motorcycle ride-hailing service.
What happened
COVID-19 halted geographic expansion and pushed Gozem vertical: it added e-commerce and parcel delivery, then a lease-to-own vehicle financing program that deployed 1,500 vehicles by 2021 and around 7,000 by 2025 with help from the International Finance Corporation. The December 2021 $5M Series A (investors including Thunes and SMRT's Momentum Ventures) backed expansion to 13 cities across Togo, Benin, Gabon and Cameroon, past 800,000 registered users and 5M trips, with 250 staff by then. In November 2023 Gozem acquired Beninese fintech Moneex to launch Gozem Money, a mobile-money service that now processes millions of dollars a day, and in February 2025 it raised a $30M Series B co-led by MSC Group's SAS Shipping Agencies Services and Al Mada Ventures, earmarking the capital to scale vehicle financing and digital banking.
How it ended up
Still running and scaling: nearly 10,000 registered drivers, more than a million cumulative users, monthly users in the hundreds of thousands, a $50M run-rate gross merchandise value across its verticals, and announced plans to raise another $20M for expansion across Francophone Africa.
Background
Gozem was founded in November 2018 in Lomé, Togo, by Gregory Costamagna, Raphael Dana and Emeka Ajene on a deliberate act of arbitrage: the Grab/Gojek super-app model had transformed Southeast Asia, but Francophone Africa — where founders said 95% of funding and attention goes to Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt — had no equivalent. The wedge was motorcycle ride-hailing, already the default way people and goods move through Lomé and Cotonou, digitized app-side instead of replaced.
The pandemic forced the model vertical. Gozem paused city expansion and stacked on e-commerce delivery and then lease-to-own vehicle financing, in which the company buys the bikes, trikes and cars and recovers the cost through small daily deductions from drivers' earnings. With IFC backing, that program went from 1,500 vehicles in 2021 to around 7,000 by 2025, and the platform crossed 800,000 registered users and 5 million trips by the end of 2021 across 13 cities in four countries, on a $5M Series A.
The maturation followed quickly: in November 2023 Gozem bought Beninese fintech Moneex to build Gozem Money, a licensed wallet now processing millions of dollars a day, and in February 2025 closed a $30M Series B — half equity, half debt — co-led by MSC Group's SAS Shipping Agencies Services and Pan-African investor Al Mada Ventures, which validated the model by placing industrial and financial investors into a startup most global VCs still overlook. Gozem now counts nearly 10,000 registered drivers and more than a million cumulative users across its four markets, with a $50M run-rate GMV.
What has to be true
- The wedge was transport the way locals already used it: with moto-taxis ubiquitous and safety rules enforced, Gozem didn't need to change behavior—only digitize the ride.
- Driver financing made the marketplace self-growing: under lease-to-own, every financed driver had a direct incentive to maximize platform earnings, converting the driver into its strongest advocate.
- Francophone Africa's neglect was the opportunity: with capital and talent concentrated in Anglophone hubs, Gozem faced almost no competition in replicating the playbook across four countries.
- Vertical stacking raised switching costs: rides, delivery, vehicle financing and mobile money each feed the others, so peeling off a single service becomes progressively harder.
What can be applied
Copying a proven model is fine if you also transfer the missing precondition: Grab's playbook worked in Gozem's markets only because the company financed vehicles drivers could never afford.
Aftermath
After the February 2025 Series B, Gozem is executing its super-app roadmap across Togo, Benin, Gabon and Cameroon: scaling Gozem Money in Togo, expanding vehicle financing toward more of its ~10,000 registered drivers, growing its digital ticketing business (over 50,000 tickets sold in Togo alone), and publicly planning a further $20M raise to fund entry into more Francophone markets over two years. The founders' stated endgame tracks the Southeast Asia template: turn drivers into vehicle owners and build the region's emerging middle class on platform income, one financed motorcycle at a time.
Sources
- Francophone African super app Gozem grabs $5M to expand and offer more services
- Francophone West Africa's super app buys a fintech player to launch mobile money
- Gozem acquires Beninese fintech, Moneex to launch MOMO offering in Francophone Africa
- Gozem nets $30M to expand vehicle financing, digital banking in Francophone Africa
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