Spiro raises $100M, the largest-ever investment in Africa’s e-mobility

The story of Africa’s electric mobility has often been a promise of progress. Infrastructure is scarce, the power grid is unreliable, and most markets still run on cheap imported motorcycles. However, Dubai is the headquarters Spiro The past two years have been spent rewriting that narrative.

The company has just announced a $100 million investment round led by the Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA), the development arm of Afreximbank. This growth marks Africa’s largest-ever EV mobility investment and cements Spiro as the continent’s most aggressive electric motorbike company.

Spiro said it plans to deploy more than 100,000 electric bikes across Africa by the end of 2025, a 400% year-on-year jump that underscores its ambitions to dominate a segment that is considered too fragmented at scale.

Spiro’s growth has been turbulent. When the CEO Kaushik Varman Joined two years ago by Taiwanese battery-swapping giant Gogoro, the startup has just over 8,000 electric bikes and 150 swap stations in neighboring Benin and Togo.

Today, it operates in six countries, including Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, with more than 60,000 bikes installed and 1,500 swap stations, where riders can swap depleted batteries for newly charged ones. Battery swaps have grown from 4 million in 2022 to more than 27 million this year, Burman told TechCrunch.

The secret behind this growth, says Burman, is a business model built for African realities.

In African cities, motorcycles are known as taxis marriage marriage In Kenya or Okadas In Nigeria – move people and goods through crowded cities and rural towns alike Yet for the millions of riders who depend on them, fuel costs are punishing.

“These drivers spend 10 to 12 hours on the road every day, covering 150 to 200 km paying high fuel costs. At the end of each day, most save something,” said Burman. “So electric mobility, especially through a battery-swapping model, fits perfectly into this category. They can’t afford downtime and can save some money.”

That’s the wedge Spiro is leaning on. According to Burman, its electric bikes cost around 40% less than the new petrol models. In Kenya or Rwanda, where a typical gas bike sells for $1,300–$1,500, Spiro’s e-bike costs about $800 and costs about 30% less per kilometer, since battery swapping is cheaper than refueling, he says.

This combination of low cost and fast payback makes Spiro’s model attractive to taxi drivers. Burman claims most riders — who pay a daily fee to access its energy network — save up to $3 a day on fuel and maintenance. “That’s enough to buy another bike or start a small business over time,” commented the CEO.

Spiro earns revenue from both bike sales and its battery-swapping network. Riders buy or lease a Spyro bike, take the battery charged at a swap station and pay only for the energy they use. Each swap station has dozens of batteries that are continuously recharged ensuring zero downtime. Riders are billed through a proprietary algorithm that measures energy usage.

The network itself is Spiro’s profit engine: By owning the battery infrastructure and charging a small fee per swap, the company quickly achieves economies of scale. “In addition to battery swapping, we are also using renewables and energy storage to keep our network operational during blackouts”.

Spiro’s swap stations are located in gas stations, shopping centers and even religious institutions, a network built through partnerships that also create local jobs.

To meet growing demand and increase employment opportunities, the three-year-old startup has set up four assembly and manufacturing facilities across Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda. These plants assemble bikes and key components such as traction motors, controllers and batteries.

Spiro already assembles batteries in Kenya using its proprietary battery management system (BMS) and plans to increase local sourcing from 30% to 70% within two years, including plastics, helmets and brake components, according to Burman.

The $100 million round — including $75 million from FEDA and the remainder from other strategic investors — will help finance this expansion. This follows more than $180 million in previous investments, a mix of debt and equity from Equitane Group (Spiro’s parent company) and Société Générale.

The new capital will go towards Spiro’s swap network, manufacturing capacity and research and development, as well as pilot launches in new markets such as Cameroon and Tanzania.

As it grows in scale, Spiro will face increasing competition from other EV startups such as Ampersand, rome, the highestor Basigo. But Burman argues otherwise.

“Our competition is the gasoline bike segment, both the first and secondhand bike segments and the millions of potential riders who do not yet own bikes or lack access to affordable transportation and employment.”

Despite having a similar population, Africa has about 25 million motorbikes, compared to India’s 320 million. That 13x margin, he says, shows the size of the opportunity ahead.