Clean, affordable goods movement for Africa's growing cities

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

We believe moving goods should cost less and pollute less for the small businesses that keep our cities running. We are building the vehicles, the energy and the service to make that real, starting in Arusha.

The challenge

The last mile that keeps African cities running. Small, frequent B2B loads that no vehicle is built for.

Essential goods in African cities reach people through small shops, kiosks, and markets, restocked daily with small loads. These loads are often too heavy for a motorbike but too small for a van or truck, so businesses are forced to overpay or overload a motorbike and risk accidents, and almost every trip burns petrol on the streets where people live.

Read about the challenge →

90%

of everyday retail in the region goes through small businesses and retailers

66%

approximately 2 out of every 3 Africans will be city dwellers by 2050

average petrol price increase across East African countries from 2016 to 2026

Why we exist

Goods should move cleanly, affordably and reliably. On vehicles built and serviced where they work.

Greenfoot Africa began with a simple belief: light electric vehicles, charged by the sun and run on smart business models, can make moving goods far cheaper for the small businesses that keep our cities running, and make those cities cleaner. Everything we build starts there.

What we're building

Meet ZELO. Built for how African businesses move goods.

Built in Africa

Built locally, to be maintained locally.

The ZELO eTrike is a purpose-built vehicle with three to four times the capacity of a motorbike, on a locally fabricated frame built for sustained use and repairability.

Batteries swapped, no stop to charge.

Solar charging hubs charge and swap batteries. An eTrike swaps a battery in under 2 minutes and never has to park to charge.

Enabled by Smart Tech

Reliable and accessible.

ZELO Connect manages bookings, order tracking, records, and tracks every distance and CO2 saved.

Accessed as a service

Deliveries, not a vehicle to buy.

Businesses pay for deliveries, not vehicles, and trained riders do the work.

Our first production eTrikes are built and our first solar hub is up. Next, thirty of them on Arusha’s roads, in partnership with EEP Africa.

Read the ZELO story → See how far we’ve come →

Our promise

Making it possible to move three times a motorbike’s load for the price of one motorbike trip, sustainably.

a motorbike’s load in one trip

60%

cheaper per kilometer compared to using a petrol motorbike

180g

of CO2 avoided for every kilometre, charged from the sun

Proven in daily service: from February 2023, our eTrikes carried Sun King’s deliveries across Arusha: 1,010 paid trips over 10,564 km.

Partners

We don't build this alone. Partners in funding, research and manufacturing.

EEP Africa funds the Arusha pilot. MIT D-Lab worked with us on the production design of the eTrike. TWENDE, together with TEMDO, supports fabrication and certification. Baobab Fabrication Services builds with us in Arusha.

Talk to us

We're just getting started. If this is your kind of problem, talk to us.

Investors, funders, partners and businesses in Arusha: there is more to this story than fits on a page.