Santa Monica-based asset manager Rivonia Road Capital LLC is providing Planet42 with $75 million in debt financing, alongside an equity investment in the startup’s most recent fundraise. Planet42 offers rent-to-buy car subscriptions.
Founded in 2017 in Tallinn, Estonia, by entrepreneurs Eerik Oja and Marten Orgna, Planet42 has operations in South Africa and Mexico. It combines a proprietary scoring engine with a car dealership partner network. Planet42, according to a company release, has facilitated the purchase of 15,000 vehicles for individuals who struggled with access to traditional vehicle financing.
“Rivonia Road is excited to partner with Planet42 by providing the capital needed to address this market inefficiency and help expand access to mobility for thousands of underserved consumers around the world,” said Rivonia Road Capital’s co-founder Daniel Zinn. “Planet42 is a unique and transformational company, offering a life-changing solution to the people that it serves. Planet42’s exceptional founding and management team have achieved substantial traction since inception in very large but historically underserved markets. We look forward to being a part of Planet42’s ongoing success.”
Since its inception, in 2017, Planet42 has delivered 15,000 cars to its customers in South Africa and Mexico with five times growth in the numbers of cars delivered in the last 12 months alone Planet42’s goal is to deliver 1 million cars to consumers globally.
“We’re thrilled to have Rivonia Road backing Planet42 in our mission to democratize mobility in emerging markets,” Oja said. “This debt facility allows us to buy 10,000 cars for deserving people in South Africa, enabling them 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.”
In addition to Rivonia Road, Planet42 has raised $150 million in combined equity and debt funding from investors such as Naspers, Change Ventures, Startup Wise Guys, Martin Villig of Bolt, Ragnar Sass of Pipedrive and Andrew Rolfe.
