Transforming Last-Mile Delivery: Ghana’s Growing E-Mobility Potential
How Kofa is Rewriting the Energy Story in Urban Africa
When Erik Nygard returned to Ghana, the country where he spent part of his childhood, the transformation was impossible to miss. Motorcycles, traffic, noise, more of it all. But as a climate-conscious entrepreneur, he saw that hidden below that congestion was a massive opportunity.
From that seed of observation, Kofa was born.
Not Just Mobility, Energy Access
Kofa is often framed as an electric mobility company. And yes, they design electric motorcycles and battery-swap infrastructure. But as Erik makes clear, “Our business is about providing energy access through small packets of energy, our batteries.” In other words, Kofa is in the energy business, with mobility as its first frontier.
These batteries, portable, swappable, and smart, are designed to power more than just two-wheelers. They’re being positioned to support small businesses, street vendors, and everyday users who need reliable power in cities where energy access, even in urban areas, can be patchy and unpredictable.
Built for the Urban Majority
Unlike many energy access solutions that focus on rural electrification, Kofa is starting in cities. “Urban energy insecurity is real,” Erik says. “People in cities still struggle with stable, affordable energy. We saw a chance to meet that need directly.”
By embedding their swap stations across urban landscapes, Kofa is extending the grid in places where the traditional grid fails to reach or remain consistent.
Form Follows Function
One of Kofa’s most deliberate design choices was to engineer both the battery and the bike from scratch. “We started with the battery, because the battery is the value,” Erik explains. “Then we built the bike around it to optimize the customer experience.”
The result? A sleek system where batteries drop top-down into the vehicle. Faster, easier, and more intuitive for users. It’s a subtle design feature, but one that reflects Kofa’s obsession with user experience in the African context.
The Economics of Change
Electrifying transport isn’t just good for the planet, it’s becoming cost-competitive too. Kofa’s model leverages the declining cost of batteries and the rapid expansion of electric vehicle technology to beat petrol alternatives on price, particularly for delivery riders and small business owners.
“The demand for motorcycles is exploding across Africa,” Erik notes. “And now, electric options can match or beat petrol pricing. So this shift isn’t just ideal, it’s inevitable.”
Partnerships Are the Accelerator
Scaling in Africa comes with its challenges, capital intensity being chief among them. That’s why Kofa leans heavily on partnerships. From vehicle manufacturers in Asia to infrastructure builders on the ground, Kofa is creating a distributed system of collaborators to scale rapidly.
The goal? “Mass scale adoption,” Erik says. “We’re not trying to sell a few thousand units a year. We’re aiming for hundreds of thousands. That’s the kind of scale that will actually move the needle on climate and access.”
The Policy Push (and Its Limits)
While Kofa’s business model can stand without subsidies, Erik acknowledges that policy support could supercharge adoption. “Even short-term subsidies could accelerate this transition significantly. The tech is ready. We just need the ecosystem to catch up.”
Ghana, he says, has done well to set ambitious climate targets and improve grid access. But as is often the case, implementation at the ground level still lags behind the policy vision.
The Bigger Picture
At its core, Kofa wants to be what MTN and Safaricom are to data, but for clean energy. A dominant, accessible, reliable energy brand. “We want to be the go-to source for clean, affordable energy across African cities,” Erik says.
And for him, the motivation is as personal as it is planetary.
“I like solving hard problems,” he says. “And this is one of the biggest: how do we transition to cleaner energy in a way that’s fast, scalable, and makes life better for people? That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.”
