Twenty-five thousand cars. Twenty-two Mexican states. One asset-heavy bet that the rideshare driver locked out of a traditional auto loan is, in fact, a creditworthy customer if you underwrite them on the right data.
That is the wager OCN, the Mexico City fintech formerly known as OneCarNow!, closed last summer when it raised an $86 million Series A led by Great North Ventures, with Caravela Capital, Collide Capital and debt from i80 Group also writing checks [Fintech Global, July 2024]. The company says it now operates the largest gig fleet in Mexico [Great North Ventures, 2025].
The wedge: a driver no bank will touch
The pitch starts with a number that does most of the work. Fewer than 3% of ride-hail drivers in the region qualify for a traditional car loan [Great North Ventures, 2025]. The other 97% are the addressable market, and OCN's product is built to meet them where they are: an all-inclusive monthly subscription that bundles an EV, insurance, maintenance, 24/7 support, a 4,000-mile monthly allowance and a rent-to-own path [The Rideshare Guy, October 2024].
Underwriting is where the fintech label earns its keep. CEO Mairon Sandoval's team scores applicants on rideshare trip data, open banking feeds and background checks rather than the credit bureau file the bank would pull [Great North Ventures, 2024].
Why the round was structured the way it was
The shape of the $86 million tells you what kind of company OCN actually is. Equity from venture investors funds the software, the underwriting stack and the team. Debt from i80 Group, a specialist credit fund for fintech originators, funds the cars. That split matters because the unit on the balance sheet is a vehicle, not a SaaS seat.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Caravela Capital | 1 equity investor |
| Collide Capital | 1 equity investor |
| Great North Ventures | 1 equity investor (lead) |
| i80 Group | 1 debt provider |
It is also why the Miami launch in October 2024, OCN's first US market, is the move worth tracking. South Florida puts the company in front of Uber and Lyft drivers in a market with very different vehicle costs, insurance rates and regulatory exposure than Mexico.
What could go wrong
- Asset-heavy economics in two currencies. Every subscription is a depreciating EV on someone's balance sheet. Scaling the fleet means continuously refilling the debt facility.
- A US market that is not a copy-paste. Mexico's competitive set is a different animal than US rideshare-vehicle programs, where Uber and Hertz already run a direct rental channel.
- Team depth beyond the two founders. Sandoval and co-founder and Chief Product Officer Manuel Cangas Vigne anchor the public org chart [The Org]. The next layer of executive hires has not been disclosed.
The next twelve months
The questions that will decide whether OCN's Series A looks cheap or expensive in retrospect are concrete. Does the Miami pilot scale without blowing through unit economics? Does the rent-to-own conversion rate hold up as the first cohort of Mexican drivers reaches the end of their terms? Does the i80 facility get extended when the cars financed in 2024 need to be refinanced?
So here is the question for the reader: if 97% of Latin American rideshare drivers really are creditworthy when scored on the right data, who else is going to figure that out before OCN does?