BasiGo, a Kenyan startup, has raised $41.5M in a Series A round

BasiGo, a Kenyan electric bus solutions startup, has raised $41.5 million in Series A funding to help it expand operations in its home market and across Africa.

With co-investments from Novastar Ventures, CFAO Kenya, Mobility54, SBI Investment, Trucks VC, Moxxie Ventures, and Susquehanna Foundation, Africa50 led the Series A equity round.

BasiGo has raised a total of US$17.5 million in debt and US$24 million in Series A equity funding.

In order to expand BasiGo’s E-bus deployments in Rwanda, where it debuted last year, this Series A funding fulfils a significant commitment to unlock a US$7.5 million debt facility from British International Investment (BII) as well as a US$10 million loan facility from the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

Modern electric buses from BasiGo, combined with charging and maintenance services for bus operators, are made inexpensive by a pay-as-you-go financing approach that lets operators cover the cost of the battery and charging independently from the bus.

“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 calibre 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.”

In addition to using the funds to grow into other markets and vehicle types, BasiGo plans to use them to deploy 1,000 electric buses in East Africa over the course of the next three years.

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