Egyptian electric mobility startup Shift EV completes Series A funding

Shift EV, an Egyptian electric mobility startup, has raised an undisclosed Series A funding round to help it onboard more clients and expand operations into other Middle East and North Africa (MENA) markets.

Shift EV, founded in 2020 by Aly El Tayeb and Amr Helmy, converts existing gasoline-powered vehicles to electric ones using in-house designed and manufactured batteries, and delivered its first fleet of electrified vehicles late last year.

Union Square Ventures, Algebra Ventures, and Wamda led the startup’s Series A funding round, which followed its seed round last year. The Oman Technology Fund also joined them (OTF).

Shift plans to use the funds to onboard more clients and expand its operations across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It currently has 2,000 vehicles in the works that will be converted to its electric solution.

“There are approximately 25 million commercial vehicles on the roads of various emerging markets.” Bicycles, pickup trucks, minivans, and small trucks are all examples. “There is a massive multi-million market waiting for the EV disruption,” said Aly El Tayeb, Shift EV’s CEO and co-founder.

“The appeal of these batteries is that they can be customized and fit into existing vehicles.” Instead of creating a battery for each vehicle we convert, we can make a few changes to the battery modular while still using the same design we created from scratch.”