Dear reader,
Mobility in densely populated urban areas is an increasingly important problem to address. The solution should be convenient, clean, and efficient.
Today’s article is an exclusive RO interview with the co-founders of E-Moti, a corporate mobility company operating a fleet of EVs in Kenya.
In this interview, we cover:
- How did E-Moti structure its pilot program?
- What were the learnings from their B2C business? Why did they switch to B2B?
- Why doesn’t E-Moti own the vehicles it operates?
- Who are E-Moti’s corporate ICPs?
- Why did E-Moti build a SaaS product for its clients?
- How will commuting in Nairobi evolve over the next decade?
Let’s dive in.
Biography
Denis Muchoki and Billy Mwangi are the co-founders of E-Moti.
E-Moti is a Kenyan EV mobility startup providing corporate employee transport. It operates a network of over 60 EVs, comprising buses and vans. E-Moti also operates a technology platform (Manara), for booking, vehicle tracking, and corporate invoicing.
Denis has been a Commonwealth Startup Fellow at Imperial Enterprise Lab, Entrepreneur in Residence at Delta40 Venture Studio, Fellow at Futurelect, and a Sustainable Innovation Seed Accelerator Fellow at 500 Global.
Billy is a 2026 AGYLE Fellow, has been an Entrepreneur in Residence at 500 Global and Delta40 Venture Studio, and a Fellow of the Tony Elumelu Foundation.
What prompted you to explore the urban mobility market?
The core observation was that public transportation in Nairobi has not meaningfully changed since the 1990s.
The matatu (the informal minibus that operates as a shared taxi) dominates urban commuting today, much as it was organised thirty years ago. New solutions like Uber and Bolt only address a narrow slice of the market, because they are expensive. The general commuting population remains underserved.
We wanted to build a transportation solution for the everyday office commuter. Electric mobility became particularly interesting for two reasons: sustainability and cost efficiency. EV adoption across Africa, especially in public transport, has accelerated quickly over the last few years. That created an opportunity to build technology-enabled transport systems on top of a rapidly evolving EV ecosystem.
Source: Kenya’s 5% Electric Vehicle Target (2020–2025) report published by GIZ & Changing Transport
You launched a pilot program before building the current business. What was its purpose, and what did you learn?
We launched a pilot program to learn two things.
First, what does it take to operate an EV for public transport in Nairobi? Second, what are the pain points of everyday commuters?
We partnered with Roam Electric (a Swedish EV company) and operated one of their electric buses. They agreed to provide us with a pilot vehicle under a lease arrangement.
The pilot bus had around 40 seats but could legally carry up to 70 passengers, including standing commuters.
The pilot started around July 2024 and ran till August 2025. Initially, we operated one electric bus through Roam. Later, we added an electric van through another arrangement with a different provider. We ran the van pilot from September to November 2025. The pilot itself was effectively our B2C phase. We started thinking about B2B operations only in Q1 2026.
What insights did you gain from the pilot?