How Levvy Field constructed an advert enterprise out of Lagos gridlock

Lagos visitors not often stops, and neither does consideration. Levvy Field, a Lagos-based mobility promoting platform, is betting that point spent on the highway is time manufacturers can seize. Initially conceived as a GovTech resolution to digitise transport levies, the corporate has pivoted towards monetising motion throughout the town.

Utilizing shiny, illuminated containers mounted on automobile roofs, Levvy Field transforms experience‑hailing automobiles and different fleets into transferring billboards, guaranteeing manufacturers keep consistently seen to Lagosians as they commute via visitors, estates, markets and nightlife hotspots throughout the town.

The numbers present it could be on to one thing. The corporate, which started full operations in August 2025, claims that inside 5 months, it spent greater than 1.42 million minutes on Lagos roads, reaching 43,780 riders, producing 2.35 million minutes of name view time, and protecting over 1.16 kilometres throughout the town. 

Levvy Field, based by Olamigoke Kumuyi, Ayomide Ishola and Goodness Chinemelum, didn’t got down to construct an promoting firm. The unique product, initially launched as Levvy in March 2023, was conceived as a GovTech platform designed to reinforce transparency and curb income leakages. In its early pilot section, it operated primarily as a portal for monitoring authorities revenues and an exercise monitoring portal for business buses in Lagos, usually referred to regionally as Korope and Danfos.

The concept made sense on paper. In follow, it bumped into issues in early 2023 when it started talks with the Lagos department of the Nationwide Union of Street Transport Staff (NURTW), which managed the business buses. As product growth progressed, the co-founders met resistance. 

“We have been meant to liaise with them, however there was pushback from some authorities stakeholders on the time, which prevented the answer from coming to fruition, primarily as a result of it threatened to eradicate the roles of varied middlemen,” Levvy Field CEO, Olamigoke Kumuyi, stated. “They selected to take care of and enhance upon their guide, cash-based system slightly than adopting a digital one.”

Finally, the NURTW’s help waned in September 2023. With out institutional backing, Levvy’s unique GovTech imaginative and prescient collapsed. 

Holding on to the cell layer

Reasonably than shut down, Kumuyi took inspiration from New York-based digital taxi-top promoting firms Halo Group and Firefly in December with the assumption that mobility itself was nonetheless beneficial. If authorities reform was blocked, maybe the personal sector supplied a extra sensible path ahead.

“I entered the Commercial world from there, signed as much as Promoting Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) in April 2024, wrote exams in direction of turning into a member after which began assembly individuals within the trade and talking to them, studying from them, heard concerning the firms that attempted It earlier than us and the way they failed, and these have been a part of information factors that helped us via 2024 as we we’re additionally operating take a look at alongside facet,” Kumuyi stated. 

Whereas pitching to firms, one query stored surfacing in conferences: How can we attain extra individuals? Regardless of the dominance of Google, Meta, YouTube and influencer advertising, many Nigerian manufacturers struggled with saturation. 

Digital promoting turned more and more costly, crowded, and noisy. The common value per click on on Google Advertisements rose to $4.66 in 2024, up from $4.22 in 2023, a ten% year-on-year enhance. What’s extra hanging is that 86% of industries noticed prices rise in 2024, which means this wasn’t restricted to some extremely aggressive sectors; it was a broad, across-the-board development.

Consideration was fragmenting, however individuals have been nonetheless transferring via the town, creating a transparent alternative for out-of-home promoting.

Kumuyi pivoted to making a cell promoting platform, Levvy Field, beginning in 2024.

“I then registered it in Could 2024, whereas we began testing, analysis and growth till we absolutely launched with a fleet of 10 automobiles in August 2025,” he stated. The corporate went business in August 2025 with its first marketing campaign for Fedan Funding Restricted (FIL), a cell equipment model in Nigeria. 

Out-of-home (OOH) promoting, which reaches individuals outdoors their houses, was seeing renewed curiosity. The general OOH market grew by roughly 4% to five.6% globally in 2024. Whereas different conventional media (like print and broadcast TV) noticed declines, OOH hit document highs as a result of elevated urbanisation and a return to pre-pandemic journey ranges, in response to a Statista report. 

In Nigeria, the OOH market was valued at $154.40 million in 2025 and is projected to succeed in $309.60 million by 2030. Demand for billboards, road furnishings, and transit promoting has been rising, even because the broader promoting sector stays crowded and bureaucratic. 

“The demand stored getting louder,” Kumuyi stated. “Manufacturers wished extra attain, extra visibility in all places.”

Early experiments and fast failures

In early 2024, Levvy started experimenting with cell promoting utilizing ride-hailing automobiles equivalent to Uber and inDrive. Impressed by coordinated taxi promoting in cities like New York, the group initially examined digital rooftop screens.

The experiment failed quick. Gadgets broke. Warmth-warped elements. Poor roads, erratic driving and energy points uncovered a harsh actuality. 

“Nigeria humbled us,” Kumuyi stated. “You possibly can’t copy and paste what you see overseas.”

These failures pressured a shift in considering. Levvy stopped viewing itself as an promoting firm and commenced working as an operations and distribution enterprise.

The core problem was not creativity or gross sales, however uptime, reliability and logistics in one of many world’s hardest city environments, Lagos. 

“Setting, human behaviours, automobile circumstances, pricing and buying energy, insurance coverage, openness to new issues, rules and security administration, accidents and harm attributable to poor highway constructions and reckless driving,” Kumuyi stated. “All these we came upon throughout our take a look at.”

Digital shows have been deserted in favour of static rooftop adverts, redesigned particularly for Nigerian highway circumstances. The group examined totally different supplies, together with aluminium, plastics and metals, refined field shapes for aerodynamics and weight steadiness, and optimised viewing angles. Solar publicity, highway harm and ease of set up all formed the ultimate product.

After a number of prototypes, Levvy manufactured the containers to its personal specs and imported them from China.

Distribution was cracked via partnerships. Levvy Field at the moment operates via unbiased drivers and structured mobility preparations. 

“For authorized causes, we are able to’t disclose accomplice names at this stage,” Kumuyi stated. “Up to now, we’ve onboarded over 1,000 drivers, with an actively deployed subset that continues to develop.”

Mobility operators, which shaped the inspiration of Levvy Field’s distribution. Model partnerships adopted afterward and extra are nonetheless coming.

The primary official partnership with mobility operators, which shaped the inspiration of Levvy Field’s distribution, was launched in August 2025 with simply 10 automobiles. Within the following months, Levvy refined its understanding of driver behaviour, regulatory necessities and route dynamics. 

Step by step, the operational mannequin stabilised. Kumuyi factors to distribution, operations, product reliability and uptime, and driver adoption because the 4 pointers that this mannequin has been stabilised, leading to a repeatable mannequin that the corporate is now scaling via Challenge M3.

The stress take a look at

The true stress take a look at got here with Moonshot by TechCabal, certainly one of Africa’s largest know-how conferences, Levvy’s largest marketing campaign on the time. The activation required 60 automobiles—10 rooftop placements and 50 in-car placements—and reached 15,840 riders throughout 9,600 journeys.

Halfway via the marketing campaign, driver unrest throughout ride-hailing platforms threatened execution. In response, Levvy tapped into casual driver communities that Kumuyi had engaged throughout earlier testing. Inside weeks, the corporate expanded its energetic driver pool to over 400.

That enlargement proved pivotal. It stabilised the Moonshot marketing campaign and laid the inspiration for a broader operational community, which the corporate says has since grown to greater than 1,000 deployable automobiles throughout Lagos.

The Moonshot deal additionally clarified Levvy’s development trajectory. It validated the idea, accelerated visibility and market presence, and set the stage for a 3rd section targeted on capability and scale, culminating in Challenge M3, the plan to deploy 1,000 containers by the top of 2026.

Contained in the automobile: intimacy over impressions

In-car promoting turned Levvy’s second product line, however early experiments with digital screens proved too fragile and costly. The corporate as an alternative developed low-maintenance, damage-resistant placements positioned straight inside passengers’ line of sight.

That design shift produced longer, extra intimate engagement. “It’s simply you and the model for your entire journey,” Kumuyi stated. “You possibly can’t skip it.”

Levvy additionally tackled certainly one of out-of-home promoting’s persistent challenges: measurement. Via information partnerships, the corporate tracks journeys, distance travelled, and estimated time on the highway, utilizing mobility information to calculate publicity and consider time. These metrics underpin its 2025 efficiency, 1.16 million kilometres travelled and a couple of.35 million minutes of name publicity.

Regardless of this traction, Levvy stays bootstrapped. Kumuyi has intentionally prevented enterprise funding, selecting as an alternative to finance enlargement via income, consumer deposits, and reinvestment. With one other 1,000 Levvy Field–branded automobiles deliberate for 2026, the corporate is positioning itself for its subsequent section of development.

Regulation stays uneven. Nigeria’s OOH ecosystem is fragmented, with businesses such because the Promoting Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) usually criticised for sluggish advert approvals and restricted artistic flexibility. Kumuyi believes the system is bettering, however regularly.

“There’s nonetheless a protracted solution to go,” he stated. Levvy Field plans to roll out what it calls the Large Lovely Field in February 2026, bigger than its present items and designed to provide manufacturers larger freedom to customize the designs displayed on its automobiles.