Kenya’s BasiGo raises $41.5m to scale public transport electrification across Africa

Kenyan electric bus solutions startup BasiGo has raised US$41.5 million in Series A funding to help it scale operations in its home market and elsewhere in Africa.

BasiGo provides state-of-the-art electric buses along with charging and maintenance services for bus operators, making these vehicles affordable through a financing model that allows operators to pay for the battery and charging separately from the bus through a pay-as-you-go financing arrangement. 

The capital raised by BasiGo combines US$24 Million in Series A equity funding and US$17.5 million in debt. The Series A equity round has been led by Africa50 with co-investment from Novastar Ventures, CFAO Kenya, Mobility54, SBI Investment, Trucks VC, Moxxie Ventures, and Susquehanna Foundation.

This Series A funding satisfies a key commitment to unlocking a US$10 million loan facility from the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC), while it also unlocks an additional US$7.5 million debt facility from British International Investment (BII) to scale BasiGo’s E-bus deployments in Rwanda, where it launched last year.

BasiGo will use the funding to deliver 1,000 electric buses in East Africa in the next three years, while also enabling the company to expand to new vehicle types and new markets. 

“Since we founded BasiGo in 2021, our mission has been to create the future of clean, electric public transport in Africa. We are thrilled to have Africa50, a premier African infrastructure investment fund, recognise the potential of our mission. The combined equity and debt investment into BasiGo validates our business model and enables BasiGo to focus on scale and profitability. With BII’s support to expand our E-bus model in Rwanda, we are ready to deliver hundreds of modern, emissions-free electric buses across East Africa,” Jit Bhattacharya, CEO of BasiGo, said.

“We are delighted to conclude Africa50’s first investment in the e-mobility space to support the greening of the public transport sector in Kenya and Rwanda. We believe BasiGo is well positioned to scale in East Africa and beyond given its world class engineering and operations teams, strong value proposition to transport operators and the caliber of strategic and financial partners assembled by the founders,” said Raza Hasnani, managing director and head of infrastructure investments at Africa50. 

“As the largest investment to date by an African fund in an e-mobility company, we are proud to support innovation that drives green growth and development in the region.”

Cover photo: By Disrupt Africa