Kenyan electric mobility startup ARC Ride has secured $33.3 million in a fresh financing round as it moves to accelerate the deployment of battery-swapping infrastructure and expand affordable electric transportation across Sub-Saharan Africa.
The latest financing brings together venture capital firms, development finance institutions and impact investors, strengthening the company’s capacity to scale its Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) model beyond Kenya.
ARC Ride enables commercial two- and three-wheeler riders to use electric motorcycles and replace depleted batteries with fully charged units within minutes, reducing the need for conventional fuel and lengthy charging periods.
The company’s founder, Jo Hurst Croft, said the funding would help advance its ambition of making electric mobility more accessible, affordable and practical, describing the investment as an opportunity to build “a robust, scalable energy and mobility network across Africa.”
What to Know About ARC Ride
ARC Ride is a Kenyan electric mobility company focused primarily on two- and three-wheelers used for commercial transportation.
Rather than relying solely on conventional vehicle sales, the company operates a Battery-as-a-Service model designed to address some of the major barriers preventing riders from adopting electric motorcycles.
Under the model, riders can access electric motorcycles and use ARC Ride’s battery-swapping network to replace depleted batteries with charged ones instead of waiting for conventional recharging.
This is particularly relevant to commercial riders whose income depends on spending long hours on the road.
By reducing charging downtime and the upfront burden associated with electric vehicle ownership, ARC Ride is attempting to make electric motorcycles more commercially viable.
The company says its broader ambition is to make electric mobility “the default choice for riders across Africa” by improving affordability, accessibility and practicality.
Why Battery Swapping Matters for Africa’s Commercial Riders
Battery swapping is central to ARC Ride’s strategy because charging time remains one of the major challenges associated with electric mobility.
A conventional electric motorcycle may need significant time to recharge after its battery becomes depleted, potentially forcing a commercial rider to stop working and lose income.
ARC Ride’s approach is to make the battery itself a service that can be exchanged quickly. A rider can arrive at a swapping station with a depleted battery, replace it with a fully charged one and continue operating without waiting for the original battery to recharge.
The model also addresses what is commonly known as range anxiety, the concern that an electric vehicle could run out of power before reaching a charging point.
Novastar Ventures co-founder and managing partner Steve Beck said ARC Ride was tackling “one of the biggest barriers to electric mobility in Africa, reliable, extensive battery-swapping infrastructure,” alongside electric motorcycles designed specifically for commercial riders.
Funding to Drive Continental Expansion
The new $33.3 million financing round brings together several prominent investors and development finance institutions.
The round was led by Novastar Ventures and Norrsken22, with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), British International Investment (BII) and Proparco participating as co-investors.
Existing investors, including Japanese automotive supplier Musashi Seimitsu and African impact investor Talanton, also reinvested in the company. The financing further includes a debt facility from BII’s Kinetic programme and Mirova.
The latest funding comes after ARC Ride secured a $10 million debt financing facility in September, providing additional financial capacity for its expansion strategy.
The involvement of development finance institutions and impact investors is particularly significant because it reflects growing institutional interest in businesses seeking to combine commercial returns with environmental and socioeconomic impact across emerging African markets.
Targets on Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda
ARC Ride plans to deploy the new capital to expand its operations into several Sub-Saharan African markets, specifically Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
The expansion represents a major step beyond its established Kenyan market and signals the company’s intention to build a regional, rather than country-specific, electric mobility network.
Funding will also support the development of its technology platform and battery-swapping infrastructure, while helping the company increase its operational capacity across both existing and new markets.
The success of this strategy will depend heavily on whether ARC Ride can establish sufficiently dense swapping networks to make electric motorcycles convenient for commercial riders.
Norrsken22 partner Ngetha Waithaka said ARC Ride had developed a Battery-as-a-Service model in which “technology, data and network effects” could give the company the potential to become an open standard for the wider ecosystem, while describing its unit economics as compelling and its product as one that is gaining acceptance among riders.
Building an African Electric Mobility Network
Beyond financing motorcycles and installing battery-swapping stations, ARC Ride is positioning itself as an infrastructure company at the centre of Africa’s emerging electric mobility ecosystem.
Its long-term strategy involves connecting riders, electric motorcycles, batteries, swapping stations, technology and energy infrastructure into an integrated network.
Such a model could become increasingly important as African cities search for alternatives to petrol-powered transportation and governments, businesses and investors pursue lower-emission mobility solutions.
ARC Ride founder Jo Hurst Croft said the latest financing “reinforces our vision of building a robust, scalable energy and mobility network across Africa,”
Jo added that the company wants electric mobility to become more accessible and affordable than petrol alternatives.
If ARC Ride succeeds in replicating its Kenyan model across multiple markets, its battery-swapping infrastructure could become an important component of Africa’s transition from conventional motorcycles to electric commercial transportation.
However, its expansion will also face challenges involving electricity supply, infrastructure costs, battery availability, regulation, financing and competition within the rapidly developing African electric mobility market.
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