An Ethiopia-based electric mobility startup Dobai focused on electric motorbikes, has raised $13 million in Series A funding to scale its production and expand its battery-swapping network across Addis Ababa.
The round combines $8 million in equity and $5 million in debt, with backing from investors including Value Chain Innovation Fund, UTokyo Innovation Platform Co., Nagase, Persistent Energy, For Seasons, CBC Co., Ltd, Inclusion Japan (ICJ), and British International Investment (BII), which provided the debt financing.
The raise comes at a time when Ethiopia is emerging as one of Africa’s most ambitious electric vehicle markets. The government banned imports of private internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in 2024 and extended restrictions to petrol and diesel trucks in 2025, a policy shift that has sharply accelerated EV adoption.
According to Ethiopia’s Ministry of Transport and Logistics, the country now has roughly 100,000 electric vehicles on its roads.
“Ethiopia is emerging as one of Africa’s most compelling frontier markets for the clean mobility transition, where the right capital can unlock outsized impact and long-term value,” said Leslie Maasdorp, CEO of British International Investment. He added that the investment will help Dodai scale battery-swapping infrastructure and support the growth of a commercial market for electric motorbikes.
Founded in 2023 by Yuma Sasaki, Dodai assembles electric motorbikes and batteries locally in Ethiopia and runs a battery-swapping system that allows riders to exchange depleted batteries within minutes, an alternative to traditional charging.
The company raised $7 million in 2024 and has since positioned itself in a fast-moving market that includes local and international competitors such as Belayneh Kinde Group (BKG) and China’s Yadea.
Dodai is betting that its integrated approach combining local assembly with a swapping network can remove one of the biggest barriers to electric mobility: charging downtime. Since launching, it says it has assembled and deployed more than 2,000 electric motorbikes.
The new capital will be used to expand that network significantly. Dodai plans to build 30 battery-swapping stations across Addis Ababa within the next year and grow its user base to 3,000 riders.
“This funding will help take us from early traction to real scale,” said Sasaki. “We’ve proven the model in Addis Ababa now we’re building the network and infrastructure needed to make electric mobility the default.”
Longer term, the company is targeting 30,000 users and 1,000 swapping stations across Addis Ababa within three years. Beyond Ethiopia, Dodai is also looking at expansion into cities such as Abidjan, Kinshasa, Accra, Dar es Salaam, and Cairo from 2028, as it seeks to export its model to other fast-growing urban markets across Africa.
“We chose Ethiopia because that’s where the opportunity to build from first principles really exists,” Sasaki said. “This raise allows us to double down on that bet and show what the future of mobility in African cities can look like.”
