ARC Ride Raises $33.3 Million to Expand Battery-Swapping Across Africa

Kenyan electric mobility company ARC Ride has raised $33.3 million in a round led by Novastar Ventures and Norrsken22, with equity participation from the International Finance Corporation, British International Investment, and Proparco, the French development finance institution. Existing investors Musashi Seimitsu, the Japanese automotive components supplier, and impact investor Talanton also participated, alongside a debt facility from BII's Kinetic programme and sustainable investment manager Mirova.

A Battery-as-a-Service Model for Two- and Three-Wheelers

ARC Ride operates a battery-swapping network built around two- and three-wheeled electric vehicles, letting riders exchange a depleted battery for a charged one in minutes rather than waiting for a full recharge, a model well suited to commercial riders like delivery drivers and motorcycle taxi operators who cannot afford lengthy downtime. The new funding is expected to add roughly 5,000 additional electric motorcycles to the network, expanding well beyond ARC Ride's original Kenyan base. The company plans to enter or scale operations in Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda, a multi-country expansion strategy that depends on replicating a swapping-station network in each new market rather than a single centralized rollout, closer in operating complexity to a telecom infrastructure build-out than a typical software expansion.

A Development Finance-Heavy Investor Syndicate

The investor list here is notable for how heavily it leans on development finance institutions and blended finance structures, the International Finance Corporation, British International Investment, and Proparco, alongside a debt facility from a dedicated impact-focused programme, rather than a syndicate built primarily around traditional venture capital. That mix reflects how climate and mobility infrastructure investing in frontier and emerging markets increasingly depends on institutions built specifically to underwrite the higher perceived risk and longer payback periods of physical infrastructure in these markets.

What This Means for Founders

ARC Ride's round is a useful reference point for founders building physical infrastructure businesses in emerging markets: a syndicate combining venture funds, strategic corporate investors, and development finance institutions can assemble the scale of capital and risk tolerance that a purely venture-funded round often cannot, particularly for capital-intensive hardware and network businesses. AngelLinx's investor directory helps founders identify development finance and blended-capital sources alongside traditional venture investors, and the fit-scoring match tool surfaces the right combination for capital-intensive businesses. The live listings page shows current founder campaigns performing against real investor interest today, and AngelLinx's guide to managing burn rate is a useful resource for founders planning infrastructure-heavy expansion. The AngelLinx newsroom tracks emerging-market mobility and climate infrastructure funding as it develops. Founders building physical infrastructure for underserved markets can register at https://angellinx.ai/register today.

AngelLinx Intelligence | angellinx.ai