Hi there,
Welcome to the 12th edition of Next Capital, where we help you find Africa’s most promising startups—before anyone else does.
Last week, we wrote about the startup attempting to redefine healthcare for Africa’s elderly. If you missed it, you can catch up here 👇🏾
Startup: Along
Location: Nigeria
Backdrop
In Nigeria, finding safe and affordable transport is often a daily gamble. Public transport can be stressful. Ride-hailing apps are expensive. And everything in between? Sketchy at best.
But what if the fix isn’t more buses or private rides? What if it’s already here — hidden in plain sight?
Meet Along, the startup building Nigeria’s first unofficial “Tube map” for shared rides. It’s Uber meets danfo, with a sprinkle of citymapping genius.
The Problem
Transport in many African cities already runs on a kind of informal logic.
You know the drill:
You head to “Ikeja Along” or “Chevron Under Bridge” — those unofficial but universally known stops.
You wait.
You hop in with others heading your way.
You split the cost.
It’s not formal, but it works.
Along’s thesis is simple: don’t fight that behavior — upgrade it.
Along’s Fix
Along isn’t just a ride-hailing app. It’s a bottom-up transit system.
They’ve:
Created a community-sourced map of unofficial bus stops in cities like Lagos, Abuja, Bayelsa, and Port Harcourt
Built an app that lets riders share rides at these pre-identified pickup points
Added identity verification to make it safe
And limited rides to fixed routes, so costs are predictable and cheaper than Bolt or Uber
In short, they’ve built Nigeria’s first “unofficial” mass transit system — without needing a single bus.
How It Works
Users choose from mapped “stops” — just like boarding at a known danfo park
Drivers follow fixed community routes
Everyone saves money by splitting the ride
Safety is baked in with user verification and controlled pickup points
It's like hopping on a virtual bus — except you're in a car, it's cleaner, safer, and powered by community data.
The Money Talk
App live on iOS and Android
10,000+ downloads so far
500+ rides completed
Monetization via a commission model, like Uber and Bolt
Pausing full rollout to refine user experience and prep for a regulated launch
Why this matters
The problem isn't cars. It’s chaos.
Nigeria’s cities don’t have formal transit infrastructure. No transit maps. No route logic. No trust.
Government plans take decades.
Along figured out how to do it in months by crowdsourcing it from the people who use the roads daily.
This isn't a transport play.
It's a bottom-up infrastructure company.
The Opportunity
The magic is in the mapping.
Instead of waiting for the government to build a formal transit system, Along:
Drove around cities during rush hour to observe shared ride behavior
Interviewed drivers and passengers on typical stops
Validated data through repeated patterns of use
Let users help build the map by crowdsourcing stops in new cities
They’ve already mapped four cities. Scaling to more is just a matter of time and community engagement.
Why We’re Excited
This is infrastructure, not just an app — Like Paystack did for payments, Along is formalizing the informal.
Built on behavior, not idealism — They’re not changing what people do. They’re making it safer, cheaper, and more efficient.
Easy to scale — Any city with informal ride-sharing is a target market. And that’s 80% of urban Africa.
Network effects are real — The more stops they map, the more useful the system becomes. Like Waze, but for movement.
The Team
Dolapo Obat(CEO), 3x founder, 7 years of experience as a tech entrepreneur.
Endurance Omonibo(Co-founder), Serial entrepreneur. 15 years as a government contractor and media exec.
You don’t need fancy buses to fix transport in Africa.
You need to understand the roads — and the people who ride them.
Along is doing just that.
They’re not disrupting transport.
They’re decoding it.
And in the process, they just might build the most important map in Africa.
What do you think of Along?
Let us know here. And if you’d like to meet the team directly, shoot us an email.
We read every single one.
Till next week!🫡
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