China's NewTrails Capital backs electric vehicle platform Spiro
The investment is expected to support Spiro’s current manufacturing and supply chain localisation efforts.
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African electric vehicle platform Spiro today announced the closing of its latest funding round at $270 million. This follows a newly finalised $55 million investment from NewTrails Capital, a Chinese growth-stage investment fund.
“I would like to thank NewTrails Capital for believing in Spiro’s model and supporting our unique tech, energy and innovation journey. Having deployed 100,000 electric vehicles and 2,500 smart-swap stations across seven active markets, Spiro has firmly moved past the proof-of-concept phase. Partnering with NewTrail Capital’s deeply experienced team marks a powerful new chapter for Spiro as we prepare for the next steps of our pan-African and international expansion,” stated Gagan Gupta, founder of Spiro and chairman of Equitane.
Yufan Zhang, founding partner of NewTrails Capital, added: “We believe Spiro is driving a profound energy revolution across mobility use cases in Africa. This represents not only a vast and highly imaginative market opportunity, but also the potential to grow into an infrastructure-like business that creates meaningful commercial, social, and environmental value.
“In our view, Spiro’s core strengths lie in its deeply localised operating capabilities, vertically integrated supply chain, digitally enabled ecosystem, sound unit economics, and strong ability to scale rapidly. More importantly, Spiro has systematically integrated vehicles, batteries, energy replenishment, payments, and service networks into a solution that is truly tailored to the needs of African users, effectively addressing long-standing structural pain points in the local market.
“As a Chinese fund committed to investing in Africa’s energy transition and green technology, we are also very encouraged to see Chinese supply chains and financing playing an increasingly important role in this process. Spiro is still a young company, and everything today is only the beginning. We look forward to continuing to fulfil our role as a long-term investor, contributing our resources and experience, growing together with Spiro, and helping accelerate Africa’s new energy transition.”
The investment is expected to support Spiro’s current manufacturing and supply chain localisation efforts on the continent, in particular with Chinese suppliers.
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