AFRICA: with $50m, GreenMax will facilitate imports of 75,000 EVs by 2025

GreenShift Africa. This is the new platform recently launched in Kenya by US fund manager GreenMax Capital. It will provide financial support for African mobility start-ups in their commercial operations relating to imports of electric vehicles into the continent between 2023 and 2025.

Africa Climate Week (ACW), which closed in Nairobi on 8 September 2023, was the perfect opportunity for US fund manager GreenMax Capital to launch “GreenShift Africa”. The main aim of this new platform is to boost capital for electro-mobility start-ups over the next two years, with a view to facilitating imports of electric vehicles.

With an initial investment of $50 million, the initiative is being carried out in partnership with the Emirati company Tradeable House Africa, which specialises in trade, and should enable 75,000 electric motorbikes, tricycles and buses to be deployed by 2025 in several African countries, particularly in East Africa. Start-ups often lack the funds to import enough electric vehicles, given the exorbitant costs of these commercial operations.

Fast-paced investment

According to GreenMax, its new platform will also make it possible to supply “local resellers on different payment terms based on Delivered Duty Paid (the seller completes customs formalities and pays all taxes before delivering the goods to the buyer, editor’s note)”, says the company based in New York in the United States of America. GreenMax and Tradeable House Africa will cover up to 70% of the deposit required by suppliers before shipping “stocks of batteries and electric vehicles”.

Nairobi has been chosen for the $5 million GreenShift Africa pilot phase, which will start in February 2024. The city, thirsty for decarbonisation of road traffic, is home to several factories, including those of ARC Ride, known for its “Corbett” electric two-wheelers, Roam, winner of the British Earthshot prize for climate action, and the start-up BasiGo, which has been offering Kenyan drivers pre-financing options for the purchase of its electric buses since 2022.