Bolt establishes its African regional headquarters in Nairobi

Bolt, a ride-hailing company, has opened an African headquarters in Nairobi, joining a growing list of digital businesses looking to expand in the region.

The Estonian-based corporation has launched its Africa headquarters in Riverside Drive, where top executives will oversee activities in the region.

Bolt is currently present in seven African countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, and Tunisia.

The company did not have a centralized African office, but instead had offices in each of its subsidiaries.

“Its strategic location in the region and the available infrastructure has enabled us to grow tremendously in the East African Market and we believe we can leverage this to still achieve more across the entire continent,” Bolt regional director Paddy Partridge said.

According to the company, it will exploit Nairobi’s strategic location on the continent to expand to other Comesa markets as it seeks to increase its market share in the ride-hailing sector.

“This is just the beginning, and we hope it enables us to develop a cohesive model for sustainable cities engagement that will help improve city services, and urban transportation for the millions of people in the region,” Mr Partridge said.

Bolt joins other IT companies who have established hubs and labs in Nairobi as they strive to enter the African market.

Microsoft, the American IT giant, established a $27 million headquarters and labs for its main engineering hub, the African Development Centre, earlier this year.

Google is also establishing its first Africa product development centre in Nairobi as part of a Sh115.5 billion investment in Africa over the next five years.

Other corporations establishing a presence in Kenya include Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Amazon that is developing a data center, and Visa, a card payment provider.