Solar finance startup SunFunder, an investor in Arc Finance partner SolarNow based in Uganda, has closed a US$2.5 million Series A funding round, a milestone for investment in off-grid, small-scale solar. Alongside support from Khosla Impact and Better Ventures, SunFunder secured funding from Schneider Electric, a major multinational player in energy products and key investor in Arc partner Simpa Networks, which manufacturers and distributes solar home systems with a proprietary metering system in Uttar Pradhesh, India. Continue reading →

Simpa Networks, one of Arc Finance’s partners under the USAID-supported Renewable Energy Microfinance and Microenterprise Program (REMMP), has successfully raised $4M from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. Government’s development finance institution, and from GDF Suez, through their Rassembleurs d’Energies program. Continue reading →

Mahashakti Foundation (MSF) is one of Arc Finance’s partner organizations under the Renewable Energy Microfinance and Microenterprise Program (REMMP) funded by USAID. An NGO-MFI based in the Indian state of Odisha, MSF has, with Arc’s support, provided loans for efficient cookstoves and solar portable lighting under REMMP. In recent months, MSF has taken on a more ambitious program: connecting rural, off-grid villages to solar microgrids. Durmusi and Totaguda are two examples of how a partnership between the financial institution, investors, developers and the villages can connect households to reliable, clean and affordable lighting – providing significant and positive economic, social and environmental impact to these communities. Continue reading →

€2 million equity investment lays groundwork for scaling renewable energy asset finance and distribution in East Africa

SolarNow, the Uganda-based solar asset finance company, has closed its most recent equity round, raising €2 million from Novastar Ventures and Acumen, to help meet massive demand for high-quality solar technology in East Africa.

Providing a range of modular 50-500 Watt solar home systems and DC appliances through a franchise model to mainly rural customers in Uganda, this investment will enable SolarNow to expand its branch network, further upgrade its Management Information System (MIS), and invest in R&D. Continue reading →

Arc’s REMMP India Partners meet for a full day of strategy building and knowledge sharing in Delhi

Financing Small Scale Off-Grid Clean Energy: Opportunities and Challenges for Arc’s Partners, a workshop in Delhi, India organized by Arc Finance in conjunction with USAID, brought together microfinance institutions (MFIs), energy enterprises, a crowdfunding platform, and an MFI apex funder for a day-long strategy session.

How can MFIs best work with energy companies to bring renewable energy (and finance for it) to remote communities? How can these organizations make sense of the growing market of renewable energy products available? How can the sector access the long-term, low-cost debt required to reach scale in a working capital-intensive industry? And how can Arc Finance continue to help its partner organizations and other institutional friends to move from idea to business model to pilot to scale? These were among the questions discussed in a workshop round-table format with twenty CEOs and managers from Arc’s REMMP partner organizations in India (representing almost a dozen organizations across several states in India) and the Arc Finance team. Continue reading →

Yara Akkari tells an expert audience how Indian crowdfunder and Arc partner Milaap.org is bringing new financial channels to small-scale renewable energy sector

Arc Finance’s Remittance Specialist and East Africa Manager Yara Akkari was in Paris on June 17th to speak on a crowdfunding panel at the CrowdTuesday event – a regular platform that brings together various stakeholders in the crowdfunding industry at the local and regional level. CrowdTuesday is run by the European Crowdfunding Network (ECN), and organized by Alex Raguet, ECN’s French Ambassador.

Presenting in a panel discussion entitled Crowdfunding as Financing Mechanisms for Clean Energy, Yara demonstrated to her high-level audience how tapping the “crowd” provides much-needed capital opportunities for MFIs that aim for social benefits – namely, clean water, clean energy, education and sanitation. Continue reading →

The Ashden Conference and Awards gives organizations in the renewable energy space a chance to showcase and share innovations in sustainability with practitioners, investors, academics and the press. As in previous summers, Arc Finance participated in this year’s conference, alongside current and potential partners working on ways to bring affordable, clean energy to the BoP. The 2014 Ashden International Award finalists were winners in five categories: Financial Innovation; Avoided Deforestation; Clean Energy for Women and Girls; Energy for Agriculture; and Sustainable Buildings. Each of the winning organizations is working on a solution to the problems that are part of Arc Finance’s core mission, which includes helping scale the clean energy finance sector by shining a light on enterprises that are leading the way through innovation.

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Ugandan solar enterprise SolarNow uses a franchise distribution model for Solar Home Systems combined with an in-house credit facility to reach rural customers

SolarNow is an energy enterprise in Uganda, and an Arc Finance partner under the USAID-funded Renewable Energy Microfinance & Microenterprise Program (REMMP). Established as a social enterprise in May 2011, SolarNow grew out of the Rural Energy Foundation, a Dutch NGO providing distribution and training support for the use of Solar Home Systems (SHS) with market experience across Africa. SolarNow uses asset finance to provide electricity to off-grid rural communities through modular, expandable SHSs, and distributes an increasing range of energy-efficient appliances through a network of franchises around the country.

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IDCOL and Solar Home Systems in Bangladesh

While demand for small-scale renewable energy is virtually infinite, a small microfinance institution or energy enterprise needs capital to meet that demand with supply. The Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL) addresses this barrier to scale in a unique and exciting way. With massive infusion of government capital, management from the private sector and a unique asset finance model using creative partnerships, IDCOL has produced a stunningly successful program.

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In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 590 million people lack access to electricity, including eighty-five per cent of rural populations. M-KOPA Solar is seeking to change this. Based in Kenya, M-KOPA Solar (www.m-kopa.com) is an innovative asset financing company that sells small-scale solar home systems (SHSs) to off-grid households on an affordable, 12-month mobile money payment plan via hire purchase. As of February 2014, M-KOPA actively provided affordable solar power to over 50,000 Kenyan households – and is adding a thousand more households per week. M-KOPA has ambitious plans: it has just raised US$20 million to fund expansion of its customer base from fifty thousand to one million households by 2018.

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Arc/REMMP’s five-branch energy finance pilot program begins in Uttar Pradesh 

As one of India’s most successful and dynamic microfinance institutions (MFIs), Utkarsh is one of Arc’s most exciting partner organizations under its USAID-funded Renewable Energy Microfinance and Microenterprise Program (REMMP). The partnership offers a fantastic opportunity to “piggyback” Utkarsh’s nascent energy lending program on top of its underlying vigorous growth. Following a multi-month process, Arc Finance’s pilot program with Utkarsh has just begun renewable energy finance operations in Uttar Pradesh.

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The Weaker Section Development Society (WSDS) is one of seven microfinance institutions (MFIs) that Arc Finance currently assists under its USAID-funded Renewable Energy Microfinance and Microenterprise Program (REMMP). A small but fast-growing, community-based MFI, WSDS operates in the central and southern districts of India’s northeastern state of Manipur and has recently begun finance and disbursals of solar home system components to underserved communities.

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Solving the “last mile” problem – or providing renewable energy and suitable finance for it to the Bottom of the Pyramid – is far more collaborative than competitive.  You can see this clearly in the network of partnerships we at Arc Finance have developed for our current portfolio of projects: we link energy companies, MFIs, technology providers, remittance companies and other distribution organizations to facilitate access to finance for renewable energy for the un(der)electrified billions whose lives can be improved.

Collaboration and partnership were among the key themes of the 2013 Ashden Awards held in London last week. We are proud to be a supporting partner of Ashden and were thrilled to attend the awards, which are among the most prestigious for sustainable energy solutions. Projects awarded ranged from partnerships at the local level (UK-based initiatives such as encouraging cycling or recycling in cities, or developing green spaces) to global projects that try to leverage new technologies, financial innovations and the brightest of ideas in order to scale access to affordable renewable energy to those who need it most: the poor. The conference was a great opportunity to share ideas, contacts and build further partnerships. Collaboration might be a tedious and overused bit of management-speak, but in this space, it is the sine qua non of progress.

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SunnyMoney is a social enterprise that was spun off from the NGO, Solar Aid, in 2011. While Solar Aid focuses on installing solar systems into schools across several countries in Africa, SunnyMoney focuses on selling solar lanterns. In just a few years since its launch, SunnyMoney is already reaching sales levels of tens of thousands each month, growing very quickly in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia. The company employs a unique sales and marketing approach called “The SunnyMoney Way,” which works closely with education authorities, incentivizing head teachers in geographically defined regions to promote the benefits of solar lanterns to their students and families. Orders are then collected and the lights delivered in follow-up sales visits by SunnyMoney team members, during which thousands of lights can be sold in a single event.

SunnyMoney’s Managing Director, John Keane, talks to us about the excitement and hard work of the transformation of SunnyMoney from an NGO program into a social enterprise, and now the daily challenge of supporting its growing success.

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Big surprises sometimes come in small packages and Angaza Design embodies this maxim. Led by CEO Lesley Silverthorn Marincola, the three-person team had already launched in five countries with its innovative SoLite solar lamp when it encountered the affordability barrier. Unfazed, the team pivoted and turned its engineering skills to developing and testing a new concept in pay-as-you-go solar energy. Lesley spoke to Arc Finance about how the human-centered design and can-do approach of companies such as Amazon – where she worked on the early generations of the Kindle e-reader – can be applied to seemingly intractable renewable energy problems with impressive results.

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INENSUS is a young, off-grid energy company based in Germany that develops solar/wind-hybrid microgrids for developing countries’ remote rural regions. The company’s “Micro-Power Economy” model, currently being employed in Senegal, centers on supporting both income-generating as well as household energy activities to truly catalyze local village economies.

Arc Finance recently caught up with Jakob Schmidt-Reindahl, managing director of INENSUS’ Senegal operations, to discuss the company’s clients, pre-payment approach, and role that microfinance plays in helping to realize the micro-energy economy.

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Fenix International is a Silicon Valley based renewable energy company that designs and manufactures income generating energy solutions for mobile telecoms in emerging markets. The company has developed the ReadySet, a plug-and-play smart battery that charges by solar panels or bicycle dynamo to power mobile phones, lights, and many devices powered by USB or Car Lighter Adapters. The ReadySet is sold by MTN, Africa’s largest mobile phone company, through its network of retail outlets in Uganda. The end customers are micro entrepreneurs who use the ReadySet to make additional income from charging phones in off-grid rural areas.

In a conversation with Arc Finance, Brian Warchawsky (Chief Operating Officer) and Peter Glenn (Business Development and Sales Manager) explain how Fenix combines its core skills to ensure that its products work not only for the customer, but for the whole chain from manufacturing, to distribution and financing.

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Founded in 2010, Solar Sister is an energy company that promotes access to affordable solar lamps and small solar systems in communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using an Avon-style distribution system, Solar Sister builds and extends the supply chain through women’s rural networks by providing women with a “business in a bag”: a start-up kit of inventory, training and marketing support.

Arc Finance talks with Katherine Lucey, CEO of Solar Sister, about the process Solar Sister uses to support rural women to become micro-entrepreneurs and how it enables rural women to earn an income in a flexible way, doing as much or little as their circumstances and preferences dictate. Due to the pioneering work of Solar Sister, renewable energy gets to even the most remote villages, women are empowered and supporters are satisfied. In this extract, Katherine discusses, among other things, village level cash management, the importance of mobile, and learning to let her entrepreneurs set their own pace.

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Since its founding in 1984, the Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation (NWTF) has explored a range of ways to live up to its mission of helping poor Filipino women achieve self-sufficiency and self-reliance. NWTF offers an impressive array of products, including micro-loans to assist micro-entrepreneurs, insurance and student loans, and continues to look for innovative products and services to meet the needs of its clients and grow the organization.

Arc Finance talks with Raymond Serios, Director of Research at NWFT, about how the MFI embraced energy lending as a way to expand its mission and find new ways to grow and attract customers. In 2009, Arc Finance helped the organization launch its energy loan portfolio, and since that time the program has changed in a number of ways as NWTF has learned more about client demands, and as energy products have continued to diversify and evolve. In this extract from a wide-ranging interview, Raymond reveals how NWTF’s business strategy and operational approach to energy has transformed over time, moving from a narrow focus on consumer credit to a model in which members are trained and financed as energy product sales agents.

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Founded in June 2010, Milaap is a Indian start-up based in Bangalore that crowd-sources low-cost capital for microfinance institutions through its online platform as well as social funds, high net worth individuals (HNIs) and corporate partnerships. Funds are not donations, but rather micro-loans between a growing global network of contributors and low-income Indian borrowers. Milaap sources capital exclusively for non-traditional, value-added product portfolios, supporting investments in water and sanitation, vocational training, and SME capital.

In 2011, Milaap added energy lending to its portfolio when it established a partnership with DCBS, a small MFI based in West Bengal (India), and Onergy, a leading solar integrator in the region. Milaap has also made plans to partner with Karnataka-based Grameen Koota, one of India’s largest MFIs, to co-fund its growing energy lending program.

Arc Finance recently caught up with Milaap co-founder Anoj Vishwanathan to discuss the company’s origins, its growing focus on energy, and the core value proposition that it offers its MFI partners in the challenging environment of the post “microfinance crisis.”

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Product R&D and design, high volume manufacturing, global distribution, sales and marketing – this is the range of one of the world’s best known micro solar companies, d.light. Since 2006, the company has been developing and distributing high-quality, solar portable lighting products to low-income, off-grid customers worldwide. Ned Tozun, d.light’s President and Co-Founder, recently took some time to speak with Arc Finance about the company’s growth, its approach to distribution and marketing, and the role he sees for microfinance in making improved energy affordable for d.light’s target customers.

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