While electric motorcycles are more expensive than conventional bikes, the Jali Finance platform will be offering its innovative financing solutions to start-up Spiro to encourage Rwandans to opt for less polluting forms of travel.
In Rwanda, mobility start-up Spiro is heading for a new horizon. It has just signed a partnership with the Rwandan platform Jali Finance, which specializes in asset management and inclusive finance. The initiative aims to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles by Rwandans through innovative financing solutions and the reinforcement of Spiro’s fleet of e-motorbikes.
For Félix Nkundimana, Managing Director of Jali Finance, the ultimate aim is to contribute to job creation in a context marked by unemployment and pollution in this East African country. Indeed, Spiro’s electric motorcycles developed in its Bangalore and Pune plants in India do not run on fuel, which helps reduce CO2 emissions from road traffic.
The commercial partnership with Jali Finance should therefore attract new eco-responsible drivers in this East African country and facilitate the acquisition of electric two-wheelers. To this end, Spiro plans to install “the first” automatic battery exchange stations as early as March 2024 in Rwandan cities, starting with the capital Kigali. “This will be followed by the launch of our mobile app, which includes the integration of multiple services, geolocation and payment options,” says the company headed by Kaushik Burman.
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Start-up Spiro has set up in Rwanda at a time when Paul Kagame’s government is encouraging innovation and the decarbonization of transport. Tax incentives are even being introduced to encourage imports of electric vehicles, following the example of Togo. There, Spiro is also deploying its electromobility solutions as an alternative to internal combustion motorcycles. This process is financed by a €57 million credit facility backed by GuarantCo, a Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) company.
Benoit-Ivan Wansi
