Africa’s electric mobility story has often been one of promise over progress. Infrastructure is scarce, power grids are unreliable, and most markets still run on cheap imported motorcycles. But Dubai-headquartered Spiro has spent the past two years trying to rewrite that narrative.
The company just announced a $100 million investment round led by The Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA), the development arm of Afreximbank. The raise marks Africa’s largest-ever EV mobility investment and cements Spiro as the continent’s most aggressive electric motorbike company.
Spiro says it plans to deploy more than 100,000 electric bikes across Africa by the end of 2025, a 400% year-over-year jump that underscores its ambition to dominate a category long considered too fragmented to scale.
Spiro’s growth has been dizzying. When CEO Kaushik Burman joined two years ago from Taiwanese battery-swapping giant Gogoro, the startup had just 8,000 electric bikes and 150 swap stations spread between neighboring countries Benin and Togo.
Today, it operates in six countries—including Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda—with over 60,000 bikes deployed and 1,500 swap stations, where riders can swap depleted batteries for freshly charged ones. Battery swaps have surged from 4 million in 2022 to over 27 million this year, Burman told TechCrunch.
The secret behind that growth, Burman says, is a business model built for Africa’s realities.
In African cities, motorcycle taxis—known as boda bodas in Kenya or okadas in Nigeria—move people and goods through congested cities and rural towns alike. Yet for the millions of riders who rely on them, fuel costs are punishing.
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“These drivers spend 10 to 12 hours on the road every day, covering 150 to 200 kilometers while paying high fuel costs. At the end of each day, most barely save anything,” Burman said. “That’s why electric mobility, especially through a battery-swapping model, fits this segment perfectly. They can’t afford downtime and get to save some money.”
That’s the wedge Spiro is leaning into. According to Burman, its electric bikes cost roughly 40% less upfront than new gasoline models. In Kenya or Rwanda, where a typical gas bike sells for $1,300–$1,500, Spiro’s e-bikes cost around $800 and costs about 30% less per kilometer, since swapping batteries is cheaper than refueling, he says.
This combination of lower cost and faster payback has made Spiro’s model attractive for taxi drivers. Burman claims most riders — who pay a daily fee for access to its energy network — save up to $3 per day on fuel and maintenance. “That’s enough to buy another bike or start a small business over time,” the CEO remarked.
Spiro earns revenue from both bike sales and its battery-swapping network. Riders buy or lease a Spiro bike, pick up a charged battery at a swap station, and pay only for the energy they consume. Each swap station houses dozens of batteries that are recharged continuously, ensuring zero downtime. Riders are billed via 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’re also using renewables and energy storage to ensure our network stays operational even during blackouts,” Burman said.
Spiro’s swap stations are located in gas stations, shopping centers, and even religious institutions, a network built through partnerships that also creates local jobs.
To meet growing demand and increase employment opportunities, the three-year-old startup has established 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 boost local sourcing from 30% today 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 rest from other strategic investors — will help fund this expansion. It follows more than $180 million in previous investments, a mix of debt and equity from the Equitane Group (Spiro’s parent company) and Société Générale.
The new capital will go toward expanding Spiro’s swap network, manufacturing capacity, and R&D, as well as launching pilots in new markets like Cameroon and Tanzania.
As it scales, Spiro ought to face growing competition from other EV startups like Ampersand, ROAM, Max, or BasiGo. But Burman argues otherwise.
“Our competition is the gasoline bike segment, both first and the secondhand bike segment and the millions of potential riders who don’t yet own a bike or lack access to affordable transportation and employment.”
Africa has around 25 million motorbikes, compared with 320 million in India, despite similar population sizes. That 13x gap, he said, shows the size of the opportunity ahead.
