{"id":43269,"date":"2021-04-09T14:43:10","date_gmt":"2021-04-09T14:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/ampersand-rwanda-secures-us-3-5-million-to-invest-in-electric-mobility\/"},"modified":"2021-04-09T14:42:31","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T14:42:31","slug":"ampersand-rwanda-secures-us-3-5-million-to-invest-in-electric-mobility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/ampersand-rwanda-secures-us-3-5-million-to-invest-in-electric-mobility\/","title":{"rendered":"Ampersand Rwanda secures US$3.5 million to invest in electric mobility"},"content":{"rendered":"

Headquartered in Kigali, Rwanda, Ampersand assembles and finances electric motorcycles (\u2018e-motos\u2019 or \u2018e-bodas\u2019) that are cheaper, cleaner and better performing than the 5 million petrol motorcycle taxis in use across East Africa.<\/p>\n

Ampersand\u2019s vehicles produce at least 75% less carbon than petrol motorcycles and zero tailpipe emissions. Ampersand also builds and operates a network of battery swap stations, allowing drivers to change batteries faster than refilling a tank with petrol.<\/p>\n

EIF\u2019s historic US$ 3.5 million investment allows Ampersand to rapidly scale its electric motorcycle and swap station network in Rwanda. This includes hundreds more e-motos on the road, and dozens more battery swapping stations. <\/p>\n

The investment also enables Ampersand\u2019s expansion beyond Rwanda\u2019s borders, and fuels the company\u2019s research and development arm, putting Ampersand on track to electrify East Africa\u2019s entire motorcycle taxi fleet by 2030.<\/p>\n

Since its commercial launch in May 2019, Ampersand\u2019s fleet of 35 drivers and e-motos have covered over 1.3 million kilometers and over 7000 drivers are on their waiting list. <\/p>\n

EIF\u2019s investment builds on the startup\u2019s acceleration through StartupBootcamp, early-stage funding from FactorE Ventures in 2018, generous support from the Rwanda Green Fund, USAID\u2019s Development Innovation Ventures, Shell Foundation, the UK FCDO\u2019s Frontier Technology Livestreaming fund, the New Zealand Government, and a loan from Blue Haven Initiative’s Catalytic Fund.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the development, Josh Whale, Founder and CEO of Ampersand said: \u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to have EIF on board for this historic investment. We now have the momentum to scale our operations to electrify all of East Africa\u2019s 5 million taxi motorcycles by 2030. EIF\u2019s support further dispels the myth that electric transport will happen in rich nations first and trickle down to developing countries later, second-hand.\u201d <\/p>\n

James Everett, the Managing Partner of EIF expressed delight for the partnership expected to contribute a lot to climate change mitigation. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have confidence in the Ampersand team, and we believe the time is right. We are very excited to partner with Ampersand as the company scales in Rwanda and expands across East Africa. We believe that electrifying 2 and 3 wheeled vehicles in developing countries represents one of the low hanging fruits for climate change mitigation globally, and can have a profound positive impact on urban air quality,\u201d he noted. <\/p>\n

\"Ampersand<\/figure>\n
\"Ampersand<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Ampersand Rwanda Ltd, Africa\u2019s first electric motorcycle company, has secured a US$3.5 million investment from the Ecosystem Integrity Fund (EIF). The deal is the largest ever e-mobility investment by a venture capital fund in Sub-Saharan Africa and marks a turning point in global electric transport.}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-43269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43269"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=43269"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=43269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}