Africa’s electrical mobility tale has continuously been certainly one of promise over growth. Infrastructure is scarce, energy grids are unreliable, and maximum markets nonetheless run on reasonable imported bikes. However Dubai-headquartered Spiro has spent the previous two years seeking to rewrite that narrative.
The corporate simply introduced a $100 million funding spherical led by means of The Fund for Export Building in Africa (FEDA), the improvement arm of Afreximbank. The lift marks Africa’s largest-ever EV mobility funding and cements Spiro because the continent’s maximum competitive electrical motorcycle corporate.
Spiro says it plans to deploy greater than 100,000 electrical motorcycles throughout Africa by means of the top of 2025, a 400% year-over-year bounce that underscores its ambition to dominate a class lengthy thought to be too fragmented to scale.
Spiro’s enlargement has been dizzying. When CEO Kaushik Burman joined two years in the past from Taiwanese battery-swapping large Gogoro, the startup had simply 8,000 electrical motorcycles and 150 switch stations unfold between neighboring nations Benin and Togo.
As of late, it operates in six nations—together with Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda—with over 60,000 motorcycles deployed and 1,500 switch stations, the place riders can switch depleted batteries for freshly charged ones. Battery swaps have surged from 4 million in 2022 to over 27 million this yr, Burman informed TechCrunch.
The name of the game in the back of that enlargement, Burman says, is a trade type constructed for Africa’s realities.
In African towns, bike taxis—referred to as boda bodas in Kenya or okadas in Nigeria—transfer folks and items thru congested towns and rural cities alike. But for the thousands and thousands of riders who depend on them, gas prices are punishing.
Techcrunch match
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
“Those drivers spend 10 to twelve hours at the highway on a daily basis, masking 150 to 200 kilometers whilst paying prime gas prices. On the finish of every day, maximum slightly save the rest,” Burman mentioned. “That’s why electrical mobility, particularly thru a battery-swapping type, suits this phase completely. They are able to’t come up with the money for downtime and get to avoid wasting cash.”
That’s the wedge Spiro is leaning into. Consistent with Burman, its electrical motorcycles value kind of 40% much less in advance than new gas fashions. In Kenya or Rwanda, the place a normal fuel motorbike sells for $1,300–$1,500, Spiro’s e-bikes value round $800 and prices about 30% much less in keeping with kilometer, since swapping batteries is less expensive than refueling, he says.
This mixture of cheaper price and quicker payback has made Spiro’s type horny for taxi drivers. Burman claims maximum riders — who pay a day-to-day price for get admission to to its power community — save as much as $3 in keeping with day on gas and upkeep. “That’s sufficient to shop for any other motorbike or get started a small trade through the years,” the CEO remarked.
Spiro earns earnings from each motorbike gross sales and its battery-swapping community. Riders purchase or hire a Spiro motorbike, select up a charged battery at a switch station, and pay just for the power they devour. Each and every switch station homes dozens of batteries which can be recharged incessantly, making sure 0 downtime. Riders are billed by way of a proprietary set of rules that measures power utilization.
The community itself is Spiro’s benefit engine: by means of proudly owning the battery infrastructure and charging a small price in keeping with switch, the corporate temporarily achieves economies of scale. “Along with battery swapping, we’re additionally the usage of renewables and effort garage to verify our community remains operational even all the way through blackouts,” Burman mentioned.
Spiro’s switch stations are situated in fuel stations, buying groceries facilities, or even spiritual establishments, a community constructed thru partnerships that still creates native jobs.
To satisfy rising call for and building up employment alternatives, the three-year-old startup has established 4 meeting and production amenities throughout Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda. Those crops collect motorcycles and key parts similar to traction motors, controllers, and batteries.
Spiro already assembles batteries in Kenya the usage of its proprietary battery control gadget (BMS) and plans to spice up native sourcing from 30% as of late to 70% inside of two years, together with plastics, helmets, and brake parts, in step with Burman.
The $100 million spherical — together with $75 million from FEDA and the remainder from different strategic traders — will lend a hand fund this enlargement. It follows greater than $180 million in earlier investments, a mixture of debt and fairness from the Equitane Staff (Spiro’s mum or dad corporate) and Société Générale.
The brand new capital will cross towards increasing Spiro’s switch community, production capability, and R&D, in addition to launching pilots in new markets like Cameroon and Tanzania.
Because it scales, Spiro ought to stand rising festival from different EV startups like Ampersand, ROAM, Max, or BasiGo. However Burman argues another way.
“Our festival is the gas motorbike phase, each first and the secondhand motorbike phase and the thousands and thousands of possible riders who don’t but personal a motorbike or lack get admission to to reasonably priced transportation and employment.”
Africa has round 25 million motorbikes, when compared with 320 million in India, in spite of identical inhabitants sizes. That 13x hole, he mentioned, displays the dimensions of the chance forward.
