ezBike, an electric mobility startup based in Islamabad has raised $1m in pre-seed funding. Investors in the round include i2i Ventures, Walled City, GroundUp, and angels based in the US.
Founded in 2020 by Mohammad Hadi and Ali Moen, the mobility startup has onboarded 100,000 customers to date. The concept of ezBikes was launched within the umbrella of Roamer.pk, a startup that provided on-demand car rental services. While the startup has been operating on a scooter-sharing model till now, they plan to leverage the existing infrastructure to build an EV ecosystem. “Our experience assembling, operating, and maintaining electric scooters and battery swapping stations at scale since 2020 has made us uniquely well-positioned to drive the transition to EVs in Pakistan,” said Ali Moeen, co-founder and CTO/COO of ezBike.
The funding will be used to develop an electric scooter assembly line, low-cost lithium-ion battery production, and a network of battery swapping stations. The company plans to begin offering electric scooters for sale this summer. They also have plans to conduct their pilot testing by partnering with one of Pakistan’s leading delivery companies.
According to ezBike’s cofounder Mohammad Hadi, Pakistan represents a $20B market opportunity for two-wheel electric vehicles. The constant increase in petrol prices, as well as air pollution rates, present an urgent need for a switch to EVs. ezBike promises a solution that will be 80% of the cost of comparable petrol motorcycles and operates at 50% of the cost.
Pakistan’s Sustainable Development Goals include EVs accounting for 30% of all new vehicles sold by 2030, and the government has introduced supportive regulatory and tax policies to achieve this. ezBike’s approach to building an electric scooter ecosystem will help capitalize upon these policies so the country can achieve its goal.
