It started with a walk nobody should have to make.
The trip that made us start ZestRyde was two kilometres long. Too far to walk in the sun, too short to justify a fare, and there was nothing in between. Millions of those trips happen across African cities every day, and almost none of them are served well.
We looked at what already existed and kept finding the same gap: bikes designed for other cities, software that assumed perfect connectivity, and unlock flows that told you a bike was open when it wasn’t. So we decided to build the whole thing ourselves — the frame, the hardware on it, and the platform behind it.
Today ZestRyde runs in six cities. The goal has not changed since that first walk: make the nearest bike always available, always honest about its state, and cheap enough that you don’t think twice.
