Zola Electric a leading provider of solar-powered electricity solutions has gone a step further to drive distributed renewable energy and to solve energy problems prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa where millions of people continue to live without access to electricity.
Zola Electric has secured a $90 million seed funding round to provide renewable energy solutions to Africa and emerging markets.
Founded in 2011 by Erica Mackey, Xavier Helgesen and Joshua Pierce, the company has evolved from providing solar home solutions to off-grid rural communities in Tanzania to using technology to solving energy problems in almost any market.
According to Bill Lenihan, the CEO the funding will be used to improve product development and commercial efforts. First, around product development, the team is eager to build next-generation digital renewable energy.
“It’s not as simple to create technology and drop into the shores of whatever country and think your product would get installed. We need on-the-ground personnel, strong developers and integrators and distributors; people who can connect with the customer on the ground, solve their problems, install the systems and service those systems,” he said.
Zola Electric has over 1.5 million users and over 300,000 homes and businesses use Zola products across multiple African countries — Ivory Coast, Ghana, Namibia, DRC, South Africa, Zambia and Nigeria.
Outside Africa, the company is also present in the U.S., Brazil, Pakistan, and the Philippines. It has plans to expand further into Northern Africa, Asia and South America.
Since 2011, the company has raised over $230 million in debt and equity financing. The company confirmed that the equity bit was led by TotalEnergies Ventures — the capital venture of TotalEnergies; SF-based impact VC firm DBL Partners; Africa’s largest PE firm Helios Investment Partners; Vulcan Capital, the investment arm of Paul Allen; Lyndon and Pete Rive (founders of Tesla-owned SolarCity); and New York-based utility-focused hedge fund Electron Capital Partners.
The debt financing features top energy lenders FMO and SunFunder, two firms known to provide debt capital to solar companies in emerging markets.
The $90 million funding raised is a combination of debt and equity, $45 million each.
