The Mazian Investor Edition - #004
Happy H2! Powering forward to the last half of the year.
In this issue:
Greetings and company overview
Updates
Mazi Fundraise
The e-mobility landscape
The Road to COP28!
Shoutouts
Asks
Book a call with me!
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. As always please keep our newsletter private and don’t share it with anyone unless I have explicitly given permission. Thank you for supporting our vision to be the answer to sustainable mobility in Africa.
We are officially in H2! and we have a few updates.
Company Overview 🏢
Before we delve into updates, we have a quick company review of key stats. We collect a lot more information but that is the privy of our esteemed shareholders.
FTE - 10
Number of bikes launched so far - 60
Number of stations - 10
Updates
Values Changes
After a rigorous May in Cape Town with our investors Halocene Ventures (formerly Launch Labs) Mazi has refined our plans and vision.
Our new vision- To be Africa’s Leader in Moving People, Data, and Things!
Our new mission - Powering Africans into an electrified future.
Our commitment - Never Miss a Swap!
“Never Miss a Swap” is an ongoing aspiration and to us, it means rescuing stranded riders in under 30 minutes, and building a strong network of technicians and unmanned stations to guarantee uptime and enable operational support. We are letting customers know that when it comes to reliability, convenience, and efficiency Mazi is the best solution.
We have 5 new values too:
Experience the customer - Number 1 value, speaks to our focus on customer obsession.
Ubuntu - The team is what makes the magic happen, we prioritize teamwork.
Execution, Execution, Execution (3EX) - Get stuff done, do it well, and do it often.
Be Direct and Accept - Criticisms are not personal, we grow by questioning each and sharing ideas. If we agree on a path forward, the whole team gets behind it.
Found the Future - We are always improving, finding more efficient and better ways to do what we do - never miss a swap.
Welcome to the new Mazi Mobility :)
Operations are taking shape - Partnering with SENDY!🏍️
Together with our fleet management partners the Kemona Group, Mazi operations at Sendy have begun. This adds Sendy and Jumia as location partners. We will have 5 bikes initially stationed here and plan to expand this outwards.
Bike acquisition and partnership with Three Wheels United! 📊
Mazi has quietly been working with Three Wheels United, an asset financing company based out of India. Our plan is to work together to scale bikes and hit our goal of 500 bikes before the end of the year.
Three Wheels will then offer asset financing service to our customers making it affordable.
Personnel Changes 👥
We’ve onboarded Shailin Moodley as our fractional CTO. A big shout out to our investors Holocene Ventures (formerly launch labs) which is subsidizing the cost of senior talent and connected us to Shailin! Though remote he is working with us to further improve our engineering team and ensure that Mazi is able to execute our bold mission.
Shailin brings strong hardware skills having designed a windmill from scratch and over 9 years in hardware startups and manufacturing.
Media and attention 🎉
Mazi has recently been featured in the Tech and Trees Podcast interviews and recently in local media where our founder discusses the progress and challenges within the industry.
We also had the privilege of meeting the COP28 president where we showcased our bikes and had an invitation to COP28!
Mazi Fundraise🚀
As you may know, Mazi was not actively fundraising, taking a break to focus on traction and growth. However, we aim to kickstart fundraising in July. Our plan is to build a blended model for financing i.e. debt, grants, and equity.
We will be sharing the updated deck with you our esteemed shareholders and investors within the next 3 weeks!
E-mobility Landscape - A strong commitment from the Kenyan Government🔍
The Kenyan government has 0-rated electric motorcycles in the new finance bill! We have worked closely and are now founding members of the E-mobility Association of Kenya (EMAK) this is the central body lobbying for changes starting off with this massive win for the industry.
The Road to COP28 📍🛣️
As you saw above, we met the COP28 president! When we did, we pitched Mazi’s proposed trip from Nairobi to Dubai in line for COP28! Dr. Sultan has agreed to support us with funding and PR support in making our way there.
We will be sharing more news as this trip shapes up but excited about our goal to bring awareness to our work and also sequester additional support for the company through this trip as we would be riding our motorcycle into COP!
Shout outs 📣
Shout out to Satgana VC for making introductions for us to relevant investors with who we are proceeding conversations with.
Shout out to Halocene VC for partnering with Mazi to revamp our culture and better arrange our fundraising.
Shout out to DeveloPPP Ventures for financing us with 85K euros and providing us with great mentors.
Shout out to Ronke, our DeveloPPP mentor for always engaging and supporting us with introductions and being a sparing partner during times of uncertainty.
Shout out to Thomas Schmedding, Owen Jones, and Niklas Fischer for helping us put together the proposal for the Road to COP28 and evaluate the security risks involved with the trip!
Asks 🤲
We have an SPV for angel investors! We have about 2/3rds left to close the first tranche at current favorable terms. The minimum ticket size is $10K. Rare exceptions could be made.
We are hiring, we are looking specifically for an Operations Lead, Here is a link to our job board where you can find the JDs. Please follow Mazi’s LinkedIn for more details
We will be at Africa Climate Summit and Week, if you will be there please reach out.
Shailin is fractional and has only been with us for 3 months. He is already looking for his next successor, if you know people who are keen to join the e-mobility landscape, especially in such times, please reach out! I would love to already begin a conversation with them.
Thank you so much for making it this far! Please keep supporting Mazi’s mission to Power Africans into an Electrified Future! We need it. #TwendeKaziNaMazi