The Mazian - Investor Edition #001
A Newsletter for our more investor-focused Mazians. Keep subscribed to keep up with updates on Mazi and how we are designing the future of mobility.
In this issue:
Greetings and Company Overview
Problem and Solution - Mazi’s approach to the market
The e-mobility landscape
New Capex Partner
Now raising $2M
Book a call with me!
Housekeeping!
Welcome to Mazi’s first-ever newsletter. It’s a pleasure to have you! We’ve probably had a conversation about Mazi concerning fundraising. Firstly, thank you for allocating time to speak to us and believe in the ambitious vision we are shooting for! I believe that you deserve to be here and here deserves you to be.
Second the housekeeping.
There is an unsubscribe button for those that feel wrongly placed on this list. Please feel free to do so (unsubscribe). I am looking for people excited about what we are doing and ready to give us support!
If you think someone should be on this list, please let me know. This is an exclusive newsletter and therefore not open to the public, we love you here.
Greetings!! 👋
Welcome to the Mazian - Investor Edition! Our newsletter is meant to serve friends of Mazi who somewhat have a financial interest in and/or care more about the company building we are doing.
Mazi's story has been one of grit, hustle, and incredible support. It's incredible how being well-intentioned and aligning yourself with a mission that is larger than yourself attracts incredible people. I'd like to start by thanking everyone who has lent a hand, made a connection, or has simply been an ear. Most notably Satgana. They are our first backer and have set the bar tremendously high for the next set of investors.
The Problem - Our opportunity to win BIG!
Nairobi is getting warmer as we approach the end of the year. Typically this is a good thing, however, with climate change looming over us it's a poignant call to arms to mitigate the changes as much as possible. Our industry is an obvious bet.
Though humongous, the industry is fragmented with key infrastructure needing to be developed. I am reminded in this case of the term "Institutional Voids'. The term was coined by Harvard Business School professor Tarun Khanna.
It represents the lack of critical structures in emerging markets that are opportunities for startups to generate and capture the immense value and thus turn a profit. The recent fintech wave was catalyzed by this very concept. Companies stepped in where banks and legacy financial institutions had left enormous gaps.
The success of that sector has signaled to the world the viability of the continent as not just an impact hub, but more so as an opportunity to make ridiculous amounts of money. Call me biased but the next industry to see unicorns is certainly going to be e-mobility.
Despite this opportunity, transport is complex and nuanced on the continent, as we quickly discovered.
Mazi initially planned to roll out as an infrastructure player but we quickly realized, after talking to local and international bike manufacturers, the necessity of backwardly integrating in a sense. Facilitating a keener focus on where we think true value creation would rear its head, the EV infrastructure. Our question to answer shifted from, are EVs viable in this market, to how can the customer maintain the status quo of their operations whilst being more profitable?
Solution - Our big bet for the future
This question led to the development of swapping stations. and the decision to build them locally and powered by the software we are making. Fundamentally, range anxiety is a trust problem. Our customers are entrepreneurs and any downtime would hurt their bottom line.
Therefore, we are building to ensure battery availability to customers within a particular radius with the plan of getting to 99% uptime across Nairobi for starters. The Machine Learning, predictive demand, and data play, we think, would develop a solid competitive edge and optimize our operations immensely. We are building a state of charge meter that is essentially a turnkey solution that turns Mazi bikes into data nodes collecting telemetric data and battery health data. Useful information to better manage our live assets i.e batteries across our network.
Though the industry is in its infancy, this is also the best time to get on board. The nature of the market and regulation make it such that there will be fewer but bigger players. Yet, one with an incredibly lucrative payback period that could span decades.
The e-mobility landscape and how Mazi compares ⚡🏍️
The race to electrify Africa's transportation industry is on. You might have seen the news about some of our compatriots in the industry raising millions of dollars. I see this as an excellent signal for the industry. E-mobility is being recognized by investors who are making big bets on climate mitigation companies, providing an excellent opportunity to guage Mazi’s traction so far in relation to other players in the space.
APR
The first 10 bikes we brought in as an MVP were assembled in my living room.
4 people working 7 days a week.
The first grant was $6000, and Mazi paid 1/10th in space costs compared to other players.
MAY
Testing in 2 market segments, ride-hailing, and delivery.
Featured on disrupt Africa, Tech Cabal - a good signal to the ecosystem.
First customer, $20K revenue.
JUN - JUL
The second grant, first tranche $5000 came in.
State of Charge meter development begins.
Development of Mazi’s first swapping station commenced.
Collection of pre-orders began.
Testing of V1 of Mazi swapping station.
AUG
V2 of swapping station implementation started and testing commenced.
Partnership with Jumia, local logistics company, and Mazi in action having us deploy a swapping station at Jumia HQ.
$18K, second tranche came in.
SEP
1000 sign-ups, and more being actively collected.
Start of Mazi’s partnership with McKinsey and Manufacturing Africa.
Mazi joins Smart Cities Innovation Programme.
Mazi introduces a dual battery for users.
OCT
Signed a $50K CAPEX deal now going to 6x bikes.
Version 3 of swapping station development commences.
Software infrastructure on backend fully set up.
Final touch-ups for SOC meter.
We’ve been scrappy, resilient, and lean. We have feedback based on how to improve our product and are shooting to apply the principles we’ve learned over the last few months to catapult us to even more success.
Compared to other players raising at 2x to 5x our valuation, with similar traction, Mazi knows and has proven we can do more with less. Moreover, there are nearly 250,000 bikes bought in Kenya every single year and less than 500 electric bikes. The market is still so virgin. The competition is still the petrol bike!
My call to investors is to move fast in joining us, as e-mobility becomes the next fintech and takes off 🚀🚀.
Mazi's lands Capex Partner 💸
I am excited to announce our partnership with Untapped Global. Just 8 days ago we signed a partnership pilot agreement with Untapped to about $50K in non-dilutive financing. The deal is revenue-based and will pave the way for Mazi to leverage other forms of non-equity financing in the future. If the pilot goes well, Untapped would be an incredible partner to handle our scale-up needs in the coming financial year.
Thank you Untapped.
Have other financing opportunities for Mazi? Or an opportunity for partnership?
Investment Round, now raising $2M 💸
Mazi has secured enough soft commitments to close our round. This means we have about $1.4M committed from follow on investors.
Momentum is building and, we are now raising $2M and ensure we close out our round by end of November. With this timeline, Mazi can hit the ground running and be ready to tackle 2022.
We still have space in the round but we are seeing incredible interest as well. I am humbled by the people who are coming together to support Mazi and our vision to decarbonize Africa’s transportation.
Interested in chatting some more?