Denis Opudo
Greenlight Planet is a startup that offers off-grid solar products or grants for purchasing the solar products. The company has its operations both in Africa and India. Through the help of Apis Partners, an equity fund manager based in London, the company has been able to raise $60 million. The other participants in the funding included the current investors Bamboo Capital Partners and Eight Roads Ventures.
Other funds came from debts expenditures from the company’s first institution leaders like Global Partners, SunFunder, Deutsche Bank, SIMA Funds, and PG Impact Investments. Freshfields offered legal advice to the Apis Partners. The company plans to use the equity and debts in expanding its energy products lines, distributing network, and funding capabilities in Asia and Africa.
Currently, the cost of providing a solar home system with adequate energy to power the whole range of electronics needed by rural consumers is less than the cost of a single electric pole. The Apis Partners gives Greenlight an opportunity of having a long time market control. The partnership will allow the Greenlight company to use the Apis Partners experts in building on their mission to unbanked population, connect off-grid to power and financing.
The company will be able to be advantaged in offering a wider appliance financing to the poorly served Africa. The Pay As You Go (PAYG) system of the company offers financial products build in line with the sale of the physical product. The company has been enjoying profit in their last quarter of the financial year. The company has a total of 2, 400 sales agents that sales above 25,000 solar products to off-grid consumers every month.
The company’s customers are allowed to pay for the solar products over time using their mobile system for 25 cents in every day. After which they get the ownership of the solar after 6 to 8 months, and this makes the solar energy affordable than traditional electrical grid power. Greenlight actively started selling the solar panels in 2014, and they have been able to sell a total of 600, 000 until now. The company has been able to attract more investors.
