Planet42 Raises $100M in an Equity and Debt Round

Plant42, a car subscription firm based in South Africa, buys second-hand cars from car salesmen, which has raised $100 million in equity and debits from many stakeholders.

Plant42 is an early-stage investment vehicle, though a $15 million equity round was co-led by the Naspers Foundry. Plant42 welcomed the shareholders from existing and new investors, including a Los Angeles-based company, Rivonia Road Capital, a global alternative asset manager that provided a $75 million praise facility.  Additionally $10 million were also received by Planet42 in debt funding from private stakeholders.

According to the company, “the new financing, consisting of equity, credit facility, and debt, will rapidly scale its business and provide a million cars globally to people excluded from traditional car financing.”

The company said, “For Planet42, it uses proprietary scoring algorithms to assess risk in underbanked customer segments. And with its algorithms, customers can find out what budget suits them and choose new or pre-owned cars from Planet42’s dealership network. After that, Planet42 buys the car and rents it to the customer on a subscription basis. Planet42 claims that of all the customers served so far, 89% would have had no other means of gaining access to a personal vehicle. Dealers in Planet42’s South African network have reported an average increase in sales of 26% since becoming partners, 

“Safe and reliable transport is a key driver of social and economic inclusion in emerging economies. It enables people to access opportunities like jobs, education, and public services more easily when public transport is often unreliable, painfully slow, unsafe – and usually all those things at once,” 

Oja, who founded Planet42 with CFO Marten Orgna, said in a statement. “We are here to make transport more accessible and are constantly working on making Planet42’s car subscription offering accessible to people unfairly ignored by banks.”

According to Daniel Zinn, the founder and managing partner of Rivonia Road Capital, one of Planet42’s newest investors, “Rivonia Road is excited to partner with Planet42 by providing the capital needed to address this market inefficiency and help democratize access to mobility for thousands of underserved consumers around the world.”

Additionally, Plant42 is one of the few upstarts, including Autocheck, Moove, and Flexclub, concentrated on the African market and tackling this inequality through different mobility offerings.