Led · Debt Financing · Mar 2024

MPower Ventures Zambia imports and retails plug-and-play household solar devices and market-driven productive assets such as freezers, sewing machines, and water pumps for lower- and middle-income households, SMEs, and farmers. The company plans to construct 50 new rural energy hubs to extend last-mile power to domestic and public facilities, including health centers. Those hubs are expected to generate about 30 direct jobs and over 500 indirect employment opportunities. MPower received a concessional three-year, USD 2 million term loan from the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank Group, facilitated through the Trade and Development Fund, to catalyze its expansion. Management emphasized the company’s commitment to sustainable development, green growth, and improving energy access in peri-urban and rural communities. The facility was signed in Lusaka at a meeting attended by government, finance, and energy sector stakeholders. MPower built a B2B platform delivering decentralised, high-quality plug-and-play solar devices and energy-efficient household and income-generating appliances for lower- and middle-income households, SMEs and farmers. The company also offers a financing model to partners and end-users and in-house software to help distributors optimise operations. MPower operates in Zambia, Togo, Cameroon, Namibia and recently started operations in Ghana, and has grown its headcount to 36 people. Expansion and demand have driven deployment of more than 30,000 units through over 20 distribution partners, delivering electricity to more than 50,000 people in hard-to-reach and peri-urban areas. The company positions its infrastructure to scale into further African countries to capture large unmet need for reliable power across Sub-Saharan Africa. To support that growth, MPower aims to triple its impact in 2023.

Led · Debt Financing · Aug 2023

d.light designs and distributes solar-powered household products and offers PayGo consumer finance to make them affordable to low-income, off-grid households. The company uses securitized receivables financing to scale distribution and fund its PayGo offering across sub-Saharan Africa. The new multi-currency facility will purchase $176 million of receivables in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and is intended to enable access to renewable energy for an estimated six million people over the next three years. With this facility, d.light has a combined securitized financing purchasing value of $718 million across five facilities since 2020, including two in Kenya, one in Nigeria and one in Tanzania. Management says these receivables-based facilities let d.light remain consistently cash-flow positive and remove the requirement for further external equity fundraising. Earlier this year its $110 million Brighter Life Kenya 1 facility fully repaid senior debt ahead of schedule from internally generated cash flows — a first in the off-grid solar sector. d.light designs and sells solar-powered home systems and other essential solar household products, paired with a Pay‑Go personal finance service to make units affordable for low-income customers. Founded in 2007, the company launched its first solar product in 2008 and expanded into markets including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Nigeria, where it began operations in 2022. d.light says it has sold nearly 30 million products, affecting over 150 million people, and aims to reach a billion people in developing countries by 2030. The company reported a 41% revenue surge in the first half of 2023, primarily driven by its Nigerian operations. d.light has also used securitised finance in other sub‑Saharan markets to raise capital for off‑grid solar and is applying that experience to scale in Nigeria. d.light sells affordable household solar products and provides low-cost Pay-Go financing to low-income families, offering items such as solar lanterns, solar home systems, TVs, radios, and smartphones. The company has sold nearly 30 million products globally. It operates a finance model that leverages customer payments for solar purchases to raise capital and expand market share. d.light plans to scale its Pay-Go personal finance service in Tanzania using the new securitization capital. The company maintains an office in Arusha City, Tanzania, employing over 50 full-time staff to support local operations and the finance facility. d.light is a global for-profit social enterprise that manufactures and distributes solar lighting and power products designed to serve the more than 2 billion people without reliable electricity. Founded in 2007 by Ned Tozun, the company has sold 19 million solar products and operates a distribution network of over 15,000 retail outlets. In 2016 d.light launched a fully integrated Pay-Go solar home system and d.light Atlas, a proprietary back-end payment management system. The company has offices in San Francisco, Nairobi and New Delhi. d.light raised $50m in debt financing from the European Investment Bank, responsAbility Investments, Social Investment Managers & Advisors (SIMA), SunFunder and another mission-aligned investor. It intends to use the funds to continue scaling globally, launch new appliances and solar home system offerings, and provide financed Pay-As-You-Go solar home systems to additional customers in existing and new markets. d.light is an off‑grid solar solutions company that sells solar light and power products and operates in 62 countries across Africa and Asia. Founded in 2007 and led by CEO Ned Tozun, the company is based in San Francisco, Nairobi and New Delhi. It uses Pay‑as‑you‑Go (PayGo) financing to reach low‑income families and aims to serve the more than 2 billion people globally without reliable electricity. d.light recently raised an additional $10.5m comprising $5m in equity from Norfund and $5.5m in grants from Beyond the Grid and the Shell Foundation. Prior to this, the company raised $22.5m in a Series D and $7.5m in debt financing. The new funds will be used to expand operations and bring clean off‑grid power to more low‑income households in Africa and Asia.