Ugandan electric motorcycle startup gets $1m Dutch loan

From the newsletter 

Zembo, a Uganda-based electric motorcycle company, has received a loan of $1 million from Dutch development bank FMO. Zembo sells electric motorcycles to drivers directly and through third parties. It operates a battery-as-a-service model through a network of 29 battery-swap stations. The FMO loan will finance the acquisition of batteries and chargers.

• African electric motorcycle startups have raised nearly $20 million in funding this year, mainly to scale their operations. They include Ghana’s Kofa ($8.2 million), Kenya’s ARC Ride ($5 million), Uganda’s Gogo Electric ($3 million) and South Africa’s Scoothero ($0.2 million).  

• The majority of mobility sector funding has been in the form of equity. Zembo is the first African mobility startup to raise debt since Kofa, an electric motorcycle startup that operates in Ghana and Kenya, raised $4.3 million in April. Other mobility startups that have managed to secure debt this year are Togo’s Gozem which raised $15 million in February and South Africa’s Everlectric, which got a $0.2 million loan in the same month.  

More details

• Zembo was co-founded by Étienne Saint-Sernin and Daniel Dreher in 2018. The company has grown quickly to become one of Uganda’s largest electric mobility startups and employs 75 people, mainly based in its central operations and across the battery-swap network in the East African country.  

• The new funding comes nearly four years after the company raised $3.4 million in funding in November 2021. Investors in this round included Toyota, DOB Equity, and InfraCo Africa. The funding helped Zembo to expand its operations in Uganda, including increasing the number of electric motorcycles on the road and developing more charging and battery swapping stations. 

• Uganda, which has a population of more than 48 million, has a booming motorcycle industry. The country has millions of motorcycles plying its streets, especially in major cities like Kampala, Entebbe and Jinja. Electric motorcycles introduced by startups like Gogo Electric, Zembo and Spiro are increasingly becoming popular, with cumulative sales now hitting thousands.

• The number of electric motorcycles produced in Uganda grew by 139% to 2,795 units in 2024, according to a new report by the state-run Science, Technology and Innovation secretariat. Since local assembly of electric motorcycles began in the country in 2019, 4,254 motorcycles have been produced. 

• Local assembly of lithium-ion batteries is also gaining traction, mainly driven by the increased demand for electric motorcycles. According to the report, Uganda had a combined installed production capacity of 0.12GWh of lithium-ion battery packs in 2024. The main assemblers of battery packs are Gogo Electric, Soleil Power and Zembo, mostly serving the electric motorcycle segment and other battery energy storage.

• Across Africa, major electric motorcycle companies like Spiro have been attracting capital worth millions of dollars to scale across borders. The entry of new players like Zeno is increasing the pool of electric motorcycles that customers can choose from. The increased competition is leading companies to differentiate their products through various key features, mainly carrying capacity, battery range, charging models and size. 

Our take

• With rising demand and multiple players assembling lithium-ion batteries, Uganda should push for standardized battery formats and expand local manufacturing. This will reduce costs, ensure compatibility across brands, and create a reliable supply chain for battery-swapping networks.

• Most funding for mobility startups in Africa has been equity-based, but to reach mass adoption, companies should partner with local banks and SACCOs to offer flexible, affordable lease-to-own or pay-as-you-ride financing models for riders, especially informal workers. 

• As demand for electric motorcycles grows across the region, successful startups like Zembo and Gogo Electric should look to scale regionally through partnerships, licensing, or joint ventures, leveraging shared infrastructure and harmonized policies within the East African Community (EAC).