Kenyan-based 'pay-as-you-go' energy provider M-KOPA, has raised $10 Million in funding. FinDev Canada, Canada's newly launched development finance institution, announced the deal yesterday [13/04/2018] as reported by Cision. The institution was making its very first transaction.
FinDev Canada was joined in the deal by existing investors, CDC Group, the United Kingdom's development finance institution.
The deal is coming just 5 months after the company announced its biggest round of funding so far. An $80 Million debt facility led by Stanbic Bank.
M-KOPA has raised a mixture of debt and venture capital since 2011. According to its CrunchBase profile. With its Series A and Series B coming from the same investors, led by the U.S. based Gray Ghost Ventures in October 2011 and December 2012 respectively.
The $10 Million raised brings the total funding raised by the company to at least $162 Million since 2014.
So far M-Kopa says that it has “connected 600,000 homes across Africa." Adding that it has provided "75 million hours of kerosene-free lighting each month.”
Also read: We raised funding from Greentec & Village Capital, Henri Nyakarundi
Jesse Moore, M-KOPA CEO, said that “this investment will help us to bring power to another one million households over the next five years."
According to the statement, “women stand to gain the most from this off-grid solution as they carry the majority of household responsibilities, availability of electricity will have a transformative impact on family life.”
“M-KOPA also offers good-quality jobs for women, with 52% of 800-plus East African workforce of permanent employees and 44% of their commissioned sales agents being female.”
Early this week, by Kenyan Wall Street, reported that M-KOPA laid off “18% of its staff including 78 developers.” Jesse confirmed it. Saying that, “we completed a restructuring process in December 2017” to “reduce fixed costs and keep us on the path to profitability”.
Founded in 2011, M-KOPA currently operates in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania as well as Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire through a licensing agreement with PEG Africa in 2014. The company, together with Eseye, license the M-KOPAnet technology to third parties outside of East Africa. Eseye partnered with M-KOPA Solar in 2011 to develop the platform’s application framework.