The World Bank Group’s private-sector arm is considering an equity investment of up to $4m in Gigmile Technologies, a Nigerian-Ghanaian mobility fintech that has deployed more than 10,000 lease-to-own vehicles to gig-economy workers. The proposed injection would form part of the company’s Series A round and signal institutional confidence in a model that bypasses traditional collateral requirements to serve Africa’s vast informal workforce.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is weighing an equity commitment of up to $4m in Gigmile Technologies Ltd, a mobility-financing platform that provides lease-to-own commercial vehicles to drivers, logistics operators and micro-entrepreneurs across Nigeria and Ghana. The proposed investment, which would participate in Gigmile’s Series A round alongside other institutional backers, is intended to support the company’s expansion while increasing access to productive asset ownership in underserved markets.
Founded in 2022 by Kayode Adeyinka and Samuel Esiri, both former country managers at Jumia, Gigmile operates through its flagship platform, Gamma Mobility. The company addresses a structural gap in African financial services: traditional lenders typically require collateral, formal credit histories and extensive documentation — criteria that exclude the majority of workers in a continent where the informal economy accounts for roughly 55% of GDP. Gigmile’s alternative is a lease-to-own model that allows gig workers to finance motorcycles, tricycles and cars, with daily repayments capped at one-third of expected earnings. Each lease is bundled with insurance, maintenance and regulatory documentation.
The company has raised a combined $21m in debt and equity financing to date, including an undisclosed seed round in the third quarter of 2025 led by Enza Capital, with participation from Seedstars International Ventures and Norrsken Africa Fund. Gigmile operates in 13 cities across Nigeria and Ghana and has deployed more than 10,000 vehicles, with 8,500 active riders and 1,500 who now own their vehicles outright. The company’s 2025 impact report indicates that it has financed over 8,500 vehicles, enabled 15,000 gig workers to access stable income, generated more than $2m in monthly rider earnings and deployed over $18m in financed assets. It reports a 94% repayment rate and 95% vehicle utilisation rate.
Gigmile has secured strategic alliances with four of the five leading light-vehicle manufacturers globally — Yamaha, TVS, Bajaj and Hero — ensuring a supply of vehicles adapted for African road conditions and gig-economy usage. The company plans to expand into more than 15 additional cities over the next year and is targeting $100m in financed mobility assets by 2027. It also expects to begin Series A discussions in early 2026.
The IFC’s proposed equity commitment, along with other investors in the Series A round, would support Gigmile’s expansion in Nigeria and Ghana. According to project disclosures, the IFC’s participation is intended to mitigate non-commercial risks by signalling to prospective investors that the business model has the capacity to scale. The corporation would also provide support through standard-setting, strengthening environmental, social and governance practices, as well as anti-money-laundering and responsible-lending frameworks — positioning the company for sustainable growth and future institutional investment.
Beyond the immediate project, the IFC anticipates that its involvement will strengthen the competitiveness of the vehicle-lending market in Nigeria and Ghana by demonstrating the commercial viability of a vertically integrated, full-stack lease-to-own model. This, in turn, could encourage other companies to innovate and expand their vehicle-lending offerings, increasing competition in a market where access to productive asset financing remains severely constrained.
In December 2025, Yango Group announced a strategic investment in Gigmile through its venture arm, Yango Ventures — marking the group’s first investment in Nigeria. The partnership builds on an existing collaboration under which Gigmile provides car financing to drivers on the Yango ride-hailing platform in Ghana. The initiative has been framed as a “triple win”: drivers gain access to vehicle ownership and increased earning potential; Yango benefits from a motivated fleet with well-maintained vehicles; and Gigmile expands its loan portfolio with improved repayment confidence tied to drivers’ income streams through the platform.
Gigmile is also exploring new verticals beyond gig-worker financing. The company is on the verge of expanding into personal mobility leasing for salaried professionals, embedded finance products including bill payments and savings, and the adoption of electric and compressed-natural-gas vehicles as part of Africa’s clean-mobility transition. It is already testing electric motorcycles in Lagos and Accra through the E-Mobility 4 Impact programme.
The proposed IFC investment in Gigmile comes amid a broader funding resurgence for African startups, which crossed the $3bn mark in 2025 — a 33% increase from the previous year. The IFC has invested directly in more than 75 fintech companies across various verticals, including payments, lending and financial infrastructure.
The asset-financing gap for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Africa remains acute. According to IFC data, only about 5% of African SMEs access formal bank loans. For gig workers — a population projected to reach 80 million online workers across the continent by 2030 — the absence of collateral and formal documentation has historically made vehicle ownership unattainable. Gigmile’s model, which uses alternative risk-assessment systems based on vehicle usage, trip regularity and integrated payment flows rather than traditional credit scores, represents one attempt to bridge this divide.
Gigmile’s shareholders include co-founders Adeyinka and Esiri, institutional investors such as Enza Capital, Techstars Accelerator and Seedstars Ventures, as well as angel investors. The company also participated in the Techstars Toronto Accelerator programme.