Africa’s electric mobility scene has always held a ton of promise, but real progress often lagged behind. You had scarce infrastructure, shaky power grids, and most riders relied on cheap, imported motorcycles. However, Spiro, a company based in Dubai, has spent the last two years actively changing that story.
The company just announced a massive $100 million investment round. The Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA), Afreximbank’s development arm, led the raise. This investment isn’t just big; it’s Africa’s largest-ever EV mobility investment, and it instantly cements Spiro as the continent’s most aggressive electric motorbike player.
Spiro’s ambition is clear: the company plans to put more than 100,000 electric bikes on the road across Africa by the end of 2025. That’s a 400% jump year-over-year, showing how serious they are about dominating a market segment most people long considered too messy to scale.
Spiro’s growth has truly been dizzying. When CEO Kaushik Burman joined two years ago from the Taiwanese battery-swapping giant Gogoro, the startup only had 8,000 electric bikes and 150 swap stations, split between Benin and Togo.
Now, they operate in six countries—including Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda—with over 60,000 bikes deployed and 1,500 swap stations. Riders simply pull up, swap their depleted batteries for freshly charged ones, and ride off. Battery swaps have exploded, surging from 4 million in 2022 to over 27 million this year, Burman told TechCrunch.
Burman says their secret sauce is a business model they built specifically for African realities.
In African cities, motorcycle taxis—known as boda bodas in Kenya or okadas in Nigeria—move people and goods through jammed streets and rural areas. Yet for the millions of riders who depend on them, the cost of fuel is punishing.
“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 explained. “That’s why electric mobility, especially with a battery-swapping model, fits this segment perfectly. They can’t afford downtime, and they actually get to save some money.”
That savings is the key advantage Spiro focuses on. Burman points out that their electric bikes cost roughly 40% less upfront than brand-new gasoline models. In countries like Kenya or Rwanda, where a typical gas bike goes for $1,300–$1,500, Spiro’s e-bikes cost only about $800. Plus, he says, it costs about 30% less per kilometer because swapping batteries is cheaper than buying gas.
This combination of lower upfront cost and quicker payback makes the Spiro model really appealing to taxi drivers. Burman claims most riders, who pay a daily fee to use the 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 noted.
Spiro makes money from both bike sales and the battery-swapping network itself. Riders either buy or lease a Spiro bike, grab a charged battery at a swap station, and only pay for the energy they use. Each station holds dozens of batteries that constantly recharge, ensuring zero downtime for the drivers. A proprietary algorithm bills riders based on their energy consumption.
The network is the company’s real profit engine: by owning the battery infrastructure and collecting a small fee for every swap, the company quickly achieves economies of scale. Burman added, “In addition to battery swapping, we’re also using renewables and energy storage to make sure our network stays operational even when the grid goes down.”
Spiro strategically places its swap stations in high-traffic spots like gas stations, shopping centers, and even churches. They built this network through local partnerships, which also creates local jobs.
To keep up with demand and boost employment, the three-year-old startup has already established four assembly and manufacturing facilities across Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda. They use these plants to assemble bikes and key components, including traction motors, controllers, and batteries.
Spiro already assembles batteries in Kenya using their own proprietary battery management system (BMS). Burman stated they plan to increase local sourcing from 30% today to 70% within two years, including things like plastics, helmets, and brake components.
The new $100 million round—including $75 million from FEDA and the rest from other investors—will fund this massive expansion. The company previously raised over $180 million, a mix of debt and equity from the Equitane Group (Spiro’s parent company) and Société Générale.
The fresh capital will go toward expanding Spiro’s swap network, boosting manufacturing capacity and R&D, and starting pilots in new markets like Cameroon and Tanzania.
As they scale, Spiro will inevitably face competition from other EV startups like Ampersand, ROAM, Max, or BasiGo. But Burman sees it differently.
“Our real competition is the gasoline bike segment,” he argued, referring to both first and secondhand gas bikes, “and the millions of potential riders who don’t yet own a bike or lack access to affordable transportation and employment.”
Africa has about 25 million motorbikes, compared to 320 million in India, despite similar population sizes. He believes that 13x gap shows exactly how huge the opportunity is for Spiro.
