Kofa was an early starter in co-developing a motorcycle targeting African urban centres and Boda operators. The Jidi, co-developed with Chinese manufacturer TailG, is distinctively modern compared to the motorcycles deployed by other players like Spiro, Roam, or Ampersand.
The Jidi is energised by swappable batteries – the Kofa Kore2 batteries are LFP, 2.3 kWh each, and weigh 16 kg. The Jidi carries two of these batteries for a 120 km range and an 85 kph top speed. Kofa says that the Jidi has been designed in Ghana and is assembled locally in Ghana and Kenya. We infer that the CKD kits come from TailG in China, though Kofa’s Kenyan assembly would work at localising some components.
Apart from motorcycles, Kofa also offers its batteries for household power backup, power supply for small businesses, and hand tools.
Now that the Jidi is being displayed by TailG in other countries, we infer that it would be deployed in different markets with other operators.
Kofa started life in 2022, founded by Erik Nygard. He is a serial entrepreneur whose last startup, Limejump, an energy technology firm, was acquired by Shell in 2019. Kofa was started with undisclosed seed funds and a GBP 3.75m grant from the Shell Foundation in 2024.
Raising a Series-A Round
Ghana-based battery swapping and electric motorcycle manufacturer, Kofa, has raised USD 8.1m in its Series-A round. This is a mix of debt, equity, and grant, with USD 3.25m coming from Africa-focused climate-tech VC E3 Capital and Injaro Investments, a Ghana-based PE fund.
Shell Foundation has again provided USD 590k as a grant and another USD 4.3m as debt to fund the business. The Shell debt is co-funded with the UK Government through its Transforming Energy Access (TEA) platform.
Kofa plans to deploy the funds to accelerate the further development of its proprietary battery swapping platform and roll out its network in three cities in West and East Africa.
The Africa Update
We last visited Africa about a year back when we extensively covered the Bodas’ electrification in a two-part series.
Electrifying the BodaBodas
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BodaBodas Part Deux
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Much water has flowed under the bridge since then, and most prominent players have been taking giant strides towards the next stage of their businesses. We will revisit the great continent in the coming weeks in a 2/3 part series where we look at what is happening with all the prominent players, have long-format interviews with some of them, and look at how the future is shaping up in Africa.