Faced with population growth and air pollution in Ivory Coast, the start-up EVTech is raising 4.2 billion CFA francs (around €6.4 million) from national and international investors. This financing will enable the deployment of its electric vehicle recharging solutions in this West African country.
Electric mobility is expected to develop in Ivory Coast by 2024. Mobility start-up EVTech is currently conducting a Series A funding round involving national and international investors. The funds, worth 4.2 billion CFA francs (around 6.4 million euros), will be used to finance and deploy charging stations for electric vehicles.
“We are moving up a gear after more than a year of development and various full-scale tests in the city of Abidjan with the aim of closing at the end of the second quarter of 2023,” explains Florent Thomas, the founder of EVTech. The Grand-Bassam-based company also plans to extend its activities to other cities in Ivory Coast, notably the capital Yamoussoukro, where the majority of the 340,000 inhabitants still use polluting modes of transport, notably thermal vehicles.
In the meantime, EVTech is banking on the “Neo” mobile application it has developed. This digital solution, which aims to promote sustainable transport in the region, allows subscribers and drivers of electric vehicles to “locate available charging points, to know in real time the availability of the latter, the charging power offered, the type of connector or the price of the charge”, explains the start-up created in 2022.
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EVTech will also provide its technological solutions to the Ivorian start-up Auto24, which specialises in the sale and repurchase of second-hand vehicles. In December 2022, the latter installed a charging station for electric vehicles in the town of Treichville. Indeed, the subsidiary of Africar Group based in Paris, France, is preparing to launch its first range of second-hand electric vehicles (Kia e-Soul, Kia e-Niro and Hyundai Porter Electric) manufactured in Asia for individuals and companies before 2024.
Benoit-Ivan Wansi
