Investment Thesis

Jiwambe finances highly productive E-bikes that serve as the backbone for ride-hailing and delivery in Nairobi. But your capital is not secured by the hardware — it is secured by the revolving pool of rider-loan receivables those bikes generate. By reading the lender's loan book directly and triangulating it against Bolt fleet activity, The Real Deal protocol has continuous visibility into how that pool is actually performing.

As an investor, your capital is secured first by the live receivables pool — not a quarterly company balance sheet, and not the bikes, which sit behind it as the worst-case fallback. We monitor that pool continuously: aggregated and attested inside a Trusted Execution Environment, then cross-checked against independent data. That is what we mean by "Cryptographic Truth".

Unit Economics

The thesis rests on a simple per-bike calculation. In a high-activity Nairobi hub, a productive Bolt e-bike rider nets on the order of KES 2,200/day [1] after energy and platform fees — charging runs roughly KES 200/day versus ~KES 700 for petrol [2], and that saving stays with the rider. Against a daily loan repayment of ~KES 425 [3], the rider keeps ~KES 1,775, so financing absorbs under 20% of net earnings — a wide serviceability buffer, not a stretch. Jiwambe protects that buffer at the source by deploying only into dense, high-demand zones selected from live Bolt fleet data, where utilisation — and therefore daily revenue — stays high. A rider who underperforms during the probation window has the loan cancelled and the bike reassigned to a new rider, who must then earn the asset over their own probation — the bike does not sit idle, and the unit keeps paying its own way. The economics are simple by design; the monitoring is what keeps them honest.

Protocol Mitigations & Covenants

1. Near Real-Time Auditing

Traditional private credit relies on quarterly PDF reports. This facility streams continuous, TEE-attested portfolio aggregates from the lender's loan-management system — triangulated against Bolt, NTSA and M-Pesa — preventing "sampling bias" and giving investors an early-warning signal the moment the receivables pool begins to deteriorate.

2. Covenant-Enforced Replenishment

Your downside is governed by Facility LTV (KPI_6): drawn debt measured against the borrowing base — the advance rate applied to the pool of eligible receivables. As loans are repaid, written off, or fall out of eligibility, the borrowing base moves, and Jiwambe is obligated to keep it covering the drawn balance by replenishing the revolving pool with fresh eligible receivables or repaying principal. Breaches surface in the Risk Monitor in near real time; contractual enforcement — a margin call, then the security package — is the backstop, not the first line of defence.

Note from the CEO

"As the CEO of Jiwambe, I want to personally share our strategy for ensuring robust loan repayment performance. By focusing exclusively on electric bikes, our riders' earnings are fully insulated from the volatility of international oil price shocks, ensuring their daily net profits remain highly predictable and stable. Furthermore, both our riders and Jiwambe are shielded from the primary risk of fast EV depreciation because we do not own the batteries—offloading the most unpredictable depreciation factor of the equation entirely."

"We do not just hand out loans to anyone. We enforce a strict, data-driven monitoring policy during a probationary 60-day test window to separate mediocre performers from the diligent, hard-working riders. If a rider flags our risk parameters too frequently during this incubation period, their loan agreement is swiftly cancelled and the asset is transitioned to a new rider, who must in turn earn it over their own probation. Because every borrower operates within the Jiwambe fleet ecosystem, we possess unparalleled telemetry data allowing us to continuously cross-reference real-time rider earnings against repayment behavior, thereby refining our underwriting and maximizing repayment efficiency."

"A critical technical advantage of our E-bike fleet is the deep integration of OEM GPS trackers and programmatic kill-switches. Unlike traditional ICE bikes where trackers are easily bypassed, our E-bikes are functionally bricked if the telemetry system is tampered with. This prevents the common 'disappearance' risk seen in ICE fleets, where riders remove GPS units to hide assets in remote regions. With Jiwambe, if the signal stops, the bike stops."

WHAT KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT: "Trust is built on transparency about the things that could go wrong. I have three primary fears. First, another global pandemic-level event. While the Kenyan economy relied heavily on our riders to keep the country moving during COVID, a severe enough lockdown would immediately impact rider revenue. Second, protracted grid instability. Our fleet relies on the electricity grid; if charging infrastructure fails for more than a few days, our assets are bricked. Finally, extreme currency devaluation. If the local currency collapses 50% vs USD in a week, the repayment burden on our riders—who earn in Shillings—could become unsustainable. We hedge aggressively, but these tail-risks are why we rely on real-time data to catch warning signs early."

— Richard K., CEO Jiwambe Mobility

TRD

Deal Overview

Jiwambe Kenya