The race to electrify Africa’s transport sector is heating up, and development finance institutions (DFIs) are firmly in the driver’s seat. The latest move comes from France’s Proparco, which has announced an investment in Nairobi-based electric bus startup BasiGo, backing its expansion in Kenya and Rwanda.
The deal, confirmed today, sees the private sector arm of the French Development Agency (AFD) join a growing list of European and multilateral funders betting on African e-mobility. While the exact size of Proparco’s investment was not disclosed, its strategic intent is clear: to accelerate the shift away from diesel-powered public transport in some of the world’s fastest-growing urban areas.
BasiGo, founded in 2021, operates an integrated model. It locally assembles electric buses, develops charging infrastructure, and sells or leases the vehicles to bus operators through a pay-as-you-drive financing model. The company claims to have 100 buses on the road in Nairobi and Kigali, which it says have carried over nine million passengers and travelled more than 1.4 million kilometres.
“By supporting BasiGo, we are helping to unlock a new generation of clean, reliable mass public transport solutions,” said Jean Guyonnet-Dupérat, Regional Director for East Africa at Proparco, linking the investment to the group’s climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.
For BasiGo, the capital is fuel for its ambitious expansion plans. “Proparco’s investment is a powerful endorsement of the future we are building for African cities,” said CEO and Co-Founder Jit Bhattacharya. He described it as a “catalyst for the next phase of growth,” which includes scaling local assembly and accelerating the company’s “Road to 1000” electric buses.
The Proparco-BasiGo deal is a microcosm of a broader trend reshaping the African e-mobility landscape. An analysis of 2025 funding data by Launch Base Africa reveals a sector overwhelmingly dependent on development finance and climate funds, with traditional venture capital playing a diminished role.
In 2025, African e-mobility has been defined by one standout deal: a $100 million investment into pan-African operator Spiro from the Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA). Stripping out that outlier, average round sizes hover at around $5 million.
Development finance institutions and climate-focused investors now account for an estimated 70% of disclosed capital flowing into the sector this year, according to the data.
British International Investment (BII), the UK’s DFI, has been one of the most active players, backing Kenyan e-motorcycle startup Arc Ride and Rwandan counterpart Ampersand. Other significant funders include the Development Bank of Southern Africa, which is investing in EV charging infrastructure, and a suite of climate-focused funds like Mirova and Gaia Impact, which often provide debt facilities.
The concentration of DFI capital is not unique to Africa; similar patterns are observed in early-stage e-mobility markets in Southeast Asia and Latin America. The pivotal challenge for companies like BasiGo will be to prove that their models can eventually achieve commercial viability and attract purely profit-driven investors, breaking the cycle of development finance dependence.
For now, as Proparco’s investment demonstrates, the journey to electrifying Africa’s buses and motorcycles will be bankrolled not by Sand Hill Road, but by the patient capital of the world’s development banks.