MAX has added another backer, and the kind of money behind it says a lot. Nithio, a Washington-based climate fintech, has invested in the Lagos mobility company, taking its Series B3 round to $29 million. Neither side has said how much Nithio put in. The round stood at $24 million when MAX announced it in January, so the simple arithmetic points to about $5 million, though that is our sum, not theirs.
Why the profit matters more than the headline
The more telling number is older. In January MAX said its Nigerian business was profitable after it had deployed more than $56 million in fleet financing and recovered $44 million in repayments. That is roughly 79 cents back for every dollar lent so far, with the balance still being paid down by drivers. For a business that finances vehicles for commercial riders, repayment discipline is the whole game, and it is the reason lenders like Nithio show up at all.
Nithio knows this territory. In February it provided a $7 million debt facility to Spiro, the electric motorcycle maker that said this week it wants 100,000 bikes on Nigerian roads. MAX and Spiro work together: nearly 7,000 Spiro units have been delivered under a first phase of 10,000, about 70% of the way there.
The scale question
MAX, founded in 2015, now runs in 20 cities across Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon, with nine more African markets in its pipeline. It says it has served more than 60,000 commercial transport operators, facilitated over one billion trips and handled more than 350,000 battery swaps. Its assembly plant in Ibadan can turn out up to 3,600 vehicles a month, enough on paper to finish the remaining 3,000 or so phase one bikes in under a month.
The targets are steep. The company wants to support 250,000 drivers and pass $150 million in annual recurring revenue by 2027. Getting from 60,000 to 250,000 drivers means more than quadrupling its base, and that is a big if in a market where riders deal with patchy power for charging and a patchwork of city rules on commercial motorcycles.
For Nigerian investors, MAX is a useful test of whether climate-focused debt can fund everyday transport at scale rather than pilot projects. Chief executive Adetayo Bamiduro argues that profitability at home already shows electric mobility in Africa is a present-day business, not a future one.
MAX has something rare in African e-mobility, a profitable home market and lenders willing to fund more bikes; growing from 60,000 drivers to 250,000 by 2027 without letting repayments slip is the test that matters.
Figures are as reported at the time of writing. STATART news is written by Frank Brother (Markets), Christina Amgbari (Insights) and Ebipadei Joseph (Lifestyle), and checked before publication.