Vammo leads Latin America’s battery-swapping revolution as region’s e-motorcycle market surges

Latin America’s electric mobility transition is kicking into high gear, and Brazil-based Vammo is emerging as its battery-swapping champion. The São Paulo startup just closed a $45 million Series B funding round led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund, with backing from Qualcomm Ventures, 2150, Construct Capital, and others – positioning the company to expand across the region’s megacities and build what it calls the backbone of Latin America’s clean transport network.

Founded in 2022, Vammo has rapidly become the region’s leading battery-swapping platform, offering riders an all-in-one ecosystem that bundles electric motorcycles, financing, maintenance, and a growing network of 150 swap stations. Its fleet of 5,000 electric motorcycles already serves riders working for major delivery platforms like Uber, 99, Rappi, and iFood – with a waiting list still forming.

The company says its subscription model lets users access a vehicle and unlimited swapping at 30% lower cost than gasoline alternatives.

It’s a story we’re seeing playing out around the world, with similar cost-savings for battery-swapping electric motorcycles being reported in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Now Vammo is leading that charge in Latin America, and is set to significantly expand operations on the back of its latest funding round.

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Earlier this year, Vammo surpassed its one millionth battery swap milestone.

Unlike many competitors that depend on off-the-shelf components, Vammo builds everything in-house – from battery packs and charging hardware to its own IoT-enabled software platform. That proprietary technology, designed specifically for Latin American conditions, gives Vammo a major head start in the region’s still-nascent battery-swapping race.

With this new funding, the company plans to expand manufacturing and R&D in Brazil, investing more than R$500 million to ramp up production in Manaus and develop new hybrid ethanol-electric motorcycles that combine two of Brazil’s cleanest energy sources.

For riders, the economics are compelling: energy costs per kilometer are about 80% lower than gasoline, and maintenance savings reach 50%. Add Brazil’s 90% renewable electricity grid – the cleanest among G20 countries – and each swapped battery delivers a climate dividend few regions can match.

Electrek’s Take

Battery swapping makes perfect sense in cities where riders need constant uptime and limited space makes charging tricky. Vammo is proving the model can scale in Latin America – and not just in theory. Thousands of riders are already using it daily. As more countries follow Brazil’s example, expect battery swapping to become a cornerstone of clean urban mobility across the continent. São Paulo may soon do for battery-swap bikes what Taipei did for Gogoro – turn a smart idea into an unstoppable movement.

Now, if North America could just catch up with the more developed markets like South America, Africa, and Asia, that’d be really something.