UAE-based off-grid solar start-up Pawame, has secured $1.7m in grant commitments, plus $750k in equity including $250k from Launch Africa. The company has also announced that it is launching a $5m series A funding round to further boost its growth and expansion into Africa. Pawame offers a portfolio of solar home systems in remote areas of Kenya on a micro-financed basis, using mobile money repayment, making it affordable to access clean and reliable energy. Pawame aims for geographic expansion within and beyond Kenya, with the series A fundraising set to further accelerate its growth trajectory. Its current investors are primarily GCC based, with its largest shareholder being senior executives from the largest power utility companies of the Middle East as well as Launch Africa VC. With a team of 80 employees and over 200 contract agents and technicians, Pawame aims to electrify over one million people in sub-Saharan Africa that do not have access to grid power by 2025. The startup is also planning to extend its product range to other products, including appliances such as water tanks, solar water pumps and solar refrigerators, to empower families in rural areas to start their own business, and enable farmers to extend the life of their crops.
Market Based Energy Access II grant (MBEA-II), from Dutch development organization SNV, will fund market activation initiatives in Kakuma and Kalobeyei refugee camps. Additional grants were secured from AECF REACT Kenya and the World Bank-funded Kenya Off-Grid Solar Access Project (KOSAP), as well as $750k in equity including $250k from Launch Africa. Energy is just the beginning, supplanting dirty kerosene lamps, our solar products help protect as well as change the lives of off-grid families. The funds from our Series A equity round will allow us to accelerate our growth by delivering a broader array of life-changing products to more families in more of Kenya and, eventually, to other parts of Africa. Although Pawame’s products essentially offer off-grid hardware with an affordable pay-as-you-go model, their value offering is far beyond simply electricity – which will be a defining factor for the company as they bring economic growth to a historically excluded set of people.