The hard part of electrifying a motorcycle in Lagos or Nairobi was never the motorcycle, it was the charging. A rider who earns by the trip cannot afford to sit for hours waiting for a battery to fill, which is why Spiro built its business around swapping instead: pull in, trade a flat pack for a charged one, ride off in the time it takes to buy petrol.
That model has now drawn a Chinese investor, and with it Spiro has edged closer to becoming one of Africa’s few billion-dollar startups.
The company has secured an additional $55mn from NewTrails Capital, a Chinese firm, to expand its battery-swapping network, manufacturing, and energy infrastructure across the markets where it already operates.
The cheque comes only weeks after a $215mn equity round backed by Impact Fund Denmark, Equitane, and Afreximbank’s FEDA, and it pushes Spiro’s total disclosed funding to roughly $557mn, among the most raised by any electric-mobility company on the continent.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!What NewTrails is buying into is less a vehicle company than a network. Spiro runs more than 100,000 electric motorcycles and around 2,500 automated swap stations across seven countries: Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, and Cameroon.
