Green entrepreneur: “There’s a lot of reward in seeing the impact that we are having on the continent”

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH CÉLESTE VOGEL, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF eWAKA MOBILITY LIMITED. SHE WAS PART OF THE PROJECT PITCH SESSION AT AFRICA’S GREEN ECONOMY SUMMIT IN CAPE TOWN IN FEBRUARY 2024.

Let’s start with some background on you and how eWAKA started and your unique service offering?
Thanks for having me this afternoon. So yes, I have a background in law and I previously worked in the finance and engineering sectors in Europe and the United States. Building eWAKA is a very personal story to me. It’s not only about being part of the solution. I spent most of my life in Europe and in the United States, and the building in eWAKA for me is being part of the solution, but also paying it forward.

When we started, we really started on a mission to introduce ebikes to the continent. But we quickly saw that the mission was greater than that, and we decided to focus on last mile logistics inefficiencies on the continent. And ebikes are just a way to provide an affordable mode of transport for the purpose of improving last mile logistics. So, we have durable ebikes and we have smart fleet management services that integrate IoT technology and data-driven fleet management decision-making.

What technology are you using?
The technology is a really like integrating state-of-the-art IoT technology in our batteries and in the frame of the bikes together with communication protocols that enable us not only to do real time tracking, but also to manage the assets remotely. We also use fleet management software, built in-house to monitor performance, optimise routes for our riders, but really to give our clients the kind of transparency they need to ensure that they not only know where their goods are at all times, but they can also inform their own clients about the estimated time of arrival of their goods. So, ultimately it provides reliability and sustainability in the last mile logistics space.

How has this organisation changed people’s lives?
How have we changed people’s lives? So far, we have created over 600 rider jobs and a lot of people focus just on the rider jobs, but in order to be able to create those rider jobs, one needs to be able to deploy the bikes. So, we’ve assessed that for every ebike deployed, we create about 2.2 jobs. It starts with the assembly of the bikes; we have a large technical team for maintenance and preventative and corrective maintenance of the bikes but also for repairs. Furthermore, each of our riders is estimated to support four to six people. So you can do the math. I think we’ve touched over 200 lives as in the last year and a half that we’ve been in active deployment.

What is your vision for emobility?
Our vision for emobility on the continent is quite clear. I think the fact that two-wheelers have overtaken the transportation space in most African urban centres is already a sign that it is needed because of not only traffic, but also because of the increasing urban population. So for us, we believe that introducing state-of-the-art durable two-wheelers that are electric is not only about the two-wheelers themselves, but it’s also about a clean mode of transport and a mode of transport that can actually replace the use case that the motorcycles have made prevalent. So, for example, carrying passengers, but most importantly, carrying goods. Our bikes are used to carry goods that are, on average, 20 kg or less, but they can also carry 60–100 kg, if necessary. And with our cargo bicycles, you also do not need a driver’s licence, which also makes it more accessible for people who have less money, but also for women who prefer to ride bicycles instead of motorcycles. So for us, we feel that emobility has the potential not only to improve affordable transport, but really to enhance certain services and to create jobs. With this, we believe that we laid the foundation for a more sustainable and connected future, not only in the transport space for goods, but also in the commute space.

The green economy is meant to create many jobs, especially for young people. How can the continent’s youth be made to feel part of the green economy future in your view?
It’s essential, right? Half, if not three quarters of the African population is young, under the age of 30. Our riders and our staff, 80% of them are under the age of 30. Emobility gives us the opportunity to not only engage people in jobs and in the space, but really to make the green economy accessible and relatable. We’re talking about digital marketing, sales and the technology. We offer training programmes and are creating pathways to new economy jobs, constantly looking to the youth to see how they actually integrate these bikes into their lives. And we’ve actually learned from them. So I feel that emobility really connects us as Africans, not only to the new world, the new economy, but we are also able to shape and change it because of the way that we use these vehicles.

What can governments be doing with regards to enabling green economy investment and job creation?
I think governments have a crucial role to play, first by creating enabling policies and incentivising green investments. I think governments are not doing as much as they could, as much as they should. It’s not only about facilitating access to investments, but just making it a little bit less difficult for us to be able to introduce these vehicles for testing purposes. We know that a lot of these vehicles were manufactured, created and designed for other spaces, countries and continents. So a lot of what we are doing, the startups in the space is very experimental. So it’d be good for the government to create an enabling environment.

There’s also of course infrastructure that needs to be built. I think that there’s a really big role for government to play here. By fostering this kind of supportive environment, the governments will give us the means that we have to actually do the job creations that they are supposed to be doing. So I think the government is essential in driving this green economy forward.

What keeps you excited about this industry?
I think there’s just so much to do, right? Looking back on the last 3 years since we started, we spent a year and a half almost prototyping and trying to understand the space and what was needed. And we just realised that even with our product, we have three different bikes, we are just touching the tip of the iceberg. I mean, there are 1.4 billion people on the continent and there’s over 20 cities that are 10 million and more. So there’s just so much to do. There’s also so much potential in the peri-urban and rural areas for electric mobility. So I’m excited about what we can do.

I’m excited about the prospects of manufacturing coming to the continent. I think for most of us who started by importing parts from other countries, we realised that at the end of the day, the skillset needs to be local. And so, we’ve always had an assembly plant, and now this has become even bigger with the training of young people in emobility, maintenance, repair and assembly. I think it’s just exciting to know that there’s still so much to be done. We’re building an ecosystem and I can see a future where we can design vehicles that are actually the type of vehicles that are required by not only our current and future infrastructure but also the needs that we have in the city and in the rural space.

Entrepreneurship is so important for the future of the continent’s economic growth. Do you have any advice for other green entrepreneurs?
Yes, so I was just telling someone this morning that it’s hard. It is hard to build anywhere. But I think building in Africa is especially hard because as I said before, we’re building an ecosystem, right? But I think for all green entrepreneurs, I think the fact that it’s not just about reducing CO2 as one of the main benefits. But with emobility, we are touching so many aspects. We are creating jobs, we’re bringing new skills, new know-how, transferring skills. With manufacturing, there’s going to be even more potential for Africa. But we’re improving livelihoods, right? Like with bikes that are lower in cost from a total cost of ownership perspective, allow our riders and our users, our businesses to actually keep more money in their pockets and to improve the lives of not only their staff but also their families. Also with our model, we are able to introduce products like insurance products and financial literacy, for example; these are things that are made possible by emobility. So, I think for all green entrepreneurs, I want to say brace yourself, the road is bumpy. There are a lot of ups and downs; but there’s a lot of reward in seeing the impact that we are having on the continent.

You were part of the project pitch session at Africa’s Green Economy Summit in Cape Town in February 2024. How did it go?
Africa’s Green Economy Summit in February was fantastic. It was a really great experience. I think it was very well organised. People came from across the continent, the panels were really well staffed and the questions and discussions were very interesting. I think it’s really a valuable platform, not only for entrepreneurs to be able to showcase their work, but also to make connections. I met a lot of people from other parts of the continent and I was able to also learn a lot from other pitches and other innovative entrepreneurs.

How important is such an event for the continent in your view?
I think such events on the continent are crucial. I think there are a lot of events where you feel like it’s always a little bit of the same. The way that Africa’s Green Economy Summit was organised was a little bit different, because you had the panel discussions, you had some of the local entrepreneurs being able to exhibit their products, which is really good for us who are not from Southern Africa to see, but also being able to meet people from other parts of the continent, being able to have those real conversations, the variety of the topics, and understanding a little bit how far ahead certain countries are and how much more others have to do. It’s really important to be able to meet on the continent to have these conversations.

So, yes, I think we should continue to have such events. I think they’re a little expensive, and so there should be more thought given to how to make it more accessible to entrepreneurs, especially those of us who are self-funded.

August is Women’s Month in South Africa, but we celebrate women all over the continent. Do you have a message about the role of women in the green energy transition?
So, women are key drivers of change in any sector, right? And I think for Africa, this energy transition is absolutely of primordial importance. And women are usually at the centre of it, because you have access to energy in households that impacts women and children more. In the emobility space, there’s a huge focus on buses and on trains. But the reality is that half of the backbone of our industry is really the 50% of the population that is women. And so, being able to have women be part of the design of the vehicles and the direction that this energy transition will take is very important. You don’t even have to do much to encourage women to be part of this. Just in our company, 60% of the staff is women, and it’s really not intentional. It just so happens that there’s a lot of women that are trained in these areas, in engineering, in technical spaces, in sales and everything. And just being able to bring women to be part of the decision-making is very important in the way we’re going to shape this transition on the continent.

How big of a challenge is finance as an entrepreneur?
Finance is very important. There are two ways of looking at it. When we look at some of our competitors or other stakeholders in the space who’ve gotten enormous amounts of funding, of course, we wonder what is it that they are doing differently? We’re having the same conversations; we’re seeing the same people. So, there’s something to be said about access to financing for African-led startups. But I think for us, very early in the process, we realised that we weren’t going to be getting the millions that are available in the space initially. So it forced us into a very disciplined approach to our financing and a very focused unit-economic focused approach, right? So, one can make it into something really helpful. So we were able very early enough to assess the right unit economics, the right business model, the look at our revenue streams very critically and things that we knew we could do well and we could scale and leap the others on the other side.

We got our first warehouse only two months ago. We were not able to afford getting a warehouse close enough to Nairobi that would make sense. And so, it’s so important to understand that financing is not everything. It’s also what you do with it. So, having had that, what I call, that dry spell forced us to be very disciplined. I think now we’re ready for the financing and I think now the question for us is, are investors serious about African-led entrepreneurs like ourselves? Are they really interested in looking at those that have actually shown that it is possible to deploy and it is possible to have profitable models?

I think that is the real question. I think that there is a lot of money in the space, but the money is available to some and not to others. I think that’s a bigger conversation. We have also been forced to be very innovative about the type of investments that we’re looking at. I think there’s an abundance, for example, of debt, which isn’t ideal for a startup on this continent, especially with all other things like currency exchanges and inflation being so unpredictable. And so, there should be really a lot more grant money and a lot more equity-type structures available as well as an understanding of the fact that building a business on the continent is not the same as building a business in Europe or in the United States. It takes longer. It requires an understanding of the economic and social environments. And VCs in particular tend to push for certain returns too early, and that can cripple a business on the continent. So, yes, I think that’s a bigger conversation.

Anything you would like to add?
Yes, so eWAKA is committed to leading Africa’s emobility revolution. We welcome partners in all spaces, customers, investors and other types of technical partners who share this vision for a greener and more sustainable future for the continent to join us in creating lasting impact, not only in transport, but also in services in this space. Thank you so much for having me.