Persistent’s e-mobility venture building expands to West Africa with Solar Taxi partnership
Persistent is proud to announce Solar Taxi as a new partner company. Started in Ghana by Jorge Appiah in 2018, Solar Taxi is an e-mobility company with a vision to become the leading e-mobility product and services company in West Africa. Solar Taxi designs, locally assembles, and distributes electric 2-wheel (e-2Ws) and 4-wheel (e-4Ws) vehicles for transportation and delivery services.
Notable customers in Ghana include e-commerce companies like Jumia and Bolt. Both use SolarTaxi’s electric motorcycles (e-2Ws) to deliver customer orders around Accra. Drivers improve their take home by saving on fuel and maintenance costs, while reducing the climate impact from providing their essential services. As e-commerce and the need to move goods and people grows in Ghana, and throughout Africa, climate friendly transport infrastructure is needed to mitigate the negative impact of pollution in transportation.
Solar Taxi’s electric vehicles are designed for home charging but, as the market grows, the company plans to build and deploy solar charging stations to support usage. For small entrepreneurs, the company offers a mobility-as-service App that enables them to access electric motorcycles-based and climate-friendly, affordable goods delivery services. The company has also set up and runs a digital training academy for the engineers who assemble and maintain electric vehicles deployed in Ghana. The academy has trained the company’s staff of assembly technicians, the majority of whom are talented women.
Another strategy SolarTaxi will be launching soon is SolarCampus. An online application that allows students at universities to purchase items delivered by an e-bike, as well as using e-transportation services. By providing first-hand experience with e-mobility, SolarTaxi wants to instil a culture of environmental consciousness in students. The program will be in partnership with universities, encouraging students to measure their reduced carbon footprint and participate in e-mobility studies. In return students will be profiting from lower transportation costs and impactful knowledge.
Persistent is excited to welcome Solar Taxi as a venture building partner. This partnership marks Persistent’s fourth investment in the electric vehicle space. As Africa’s Climate Venture Builder with a strong commitment to e-mobility, Persistent recently shared some insights on the e-mobility sector’s potential in Sub Saharan Africa. You can find them published with other publications here. Persistent’s capital and venture building will support Solar Taxi in unlocking working capital to service significant contracts and orders for its electric vehicles.
Persistent Senior Venture Builder Toukam Ngoufanke says: “At Persistent we believe e-mobility will be an essential component of sustainable, climate-friendly transportation development. We believe that Solar Taxi is an exciting company with an attractive team. We are delighted to partner with Solar Taxi in that mission.”
Jorge Appiah, an innovator and renewable energy entrepreneur and engineer, is very passionate about driving sustainable economic growth. Outside of Solar Taxi, he fosters innovation and entrepreneurship in Ghana via the Kumasi Hive.
Solar Taxi CEO Jorge Appiah says: “Our journey throughout the years has the characteristics of resilience and hard work, right from when we assembled our first prototype vehicle to when we received our seed funding from our key partner, MasterCard Foundation. We later had to prove the business concept of our model by scaling our business activities in four different locations in Ghana.
Our growth so far has been due to the support we received from our partners, customers, investors and our hardworking staff. As we look to create our own path to success, we intend to scale our business activities by setting up an assembling plant for our bike and car operations in Ghana.
In light of that, we are delighted to welcome Persistent to the SolarTaxi family, as they believe in us and in our vision and have committed their resources to this effect. This latest funding from Persistent demonstrates their conviction in our business model and team and it gives SolarTaxi the much-needed support to deliver on our plans for the future.”
For more information, contact joy@staging.persistent.energy.