Spiro raises $50 million in debt for e-mobility push

Spiro, an African electrical mobility firm that operates battery-swapping stations for electrical bikes, has secured $50 million in debt financing to increase throughout the continent.

The funding, backed by Afreximbank, Nithio, and Africa Go Inexperienced Fund, follows a $100 million elevate in October 2025. The back-to-back offers level to rising capital wants in a enterprise that will depend on dense bodily infrastructure and dealing batteries on the bottom.

Africa’s electrical two-wheeler market is shifting from pilot tasks to capital-heavy rollouts. The businesses that safe long-term financing at scale usually tend to lock in riders, management charging networks, and set pricing energy.

“Demand for Spiro’s progressive, industry-leading battery swapping infrastructure continues to develop and is reshaping mobility in Africa by offering dependable, clear transportation choices throughout the continent,” stated Kaushik Burman, CEO of Spiro.

Based in 2022, Spiro, which operates in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, says it has deployed greater than 80,000 electrical bikes and constructed over 2,500 battery-swapping stations throughout these international locations. It has accomplished 30 million battery swaps. That footprint provides it one of many largest put in bases within the sector.

The corporate’s enterprise mannequin entails riders shopping for or leasing an electrical bike and swapping depleted batteries at Spiro stations for a charged unit in below 5 minutes. It owns and manages the batteries, turning power right into a recurring income line moderately than a one-off car sale.

Debt financing suggests lenders are rising snug with the predictability of these money flows. It additionally alerts that Spiro is leaning on structured capital moderately than diluting fairness, after final yr’s nine-figure injection.

The execution problem 

Battery swapping solely works with density and uptime. Kenya has greater than 1.9 million registered bikes, most of which function as motorbike taxis (boda bodas), offering e-mobility companies with a big base of day by day customers.

In Nairobi and different cities, riders nonetheless face uneven grid reliability, in keeping with experiences from the Vitality and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA), a Kenyan state company that regulates the power sector, which impacts how shortly stations can cost packs and retains swap factors busy moderately than idle.

Spiro’s personal numbers from its October 2025 elevate present it controls greater than 50% of the electrical motorbike market.

Electrical bikes minimize working prices in contrast with petrol, however operators declare that battery depreciation, imported elements, and foreign money swings eat into margins, particularly when swap density stays skinny exterior core corridors.