Off-Grid Electric raises $25 million to power one million homes in Africa

Off Grid Elec­tric has com­plet­ed the largest ven­ture cap­i­tal fund­ing for dis­trib­uted ener­gy in Africa, rais­ing $25 mil­lion in a Series C invest­ment round led by DBL Part­ners. Off Grid Elec­tric, based in Cal­i­for­nia and Tan­za­nia, is installing solar in over 10,000 homes and busi­ness­es per month with its rad­i­cal­ly afford­able solar leas­ing plat­form, mak­ing ener­gy uni­ver­sal­ly acces­si­ble to house­holds earn­ing as lit­tle as $1 per day. The com­pa­ny has signed a part­ner­ship with the gov­ern­ment of Tan­za­nia to pow­er one mil­lion homes in the next three years and recent­ly entered its sec­ond coun­try, Rwanda.

DBL Part­ners Founder and Man­ag­ing Part­ner, Nan­cy Pfund, will serve as Chair­woman of the Board. Nan­cy has been a long­time investor in and board mem­ber of SolarCi­ty. The invest­ment in Off Grid Elec­tric is the firm’s first inter­na­tion­al invest­ment, expand­ing DBL’s dou­ble bot­tom line invest­ment approach overseas.

“We are in the midst of a solar rev­o­lu­tion in Africa. The suc­cess of our pre-paid leas­ing mod­el in Tan­za­nia has glob­al impli­ca­tions and demon­strates that uni­ver­sal ener­gy access is achiev­able,” said Xavier Helge­sen, co-founder and CEO of Off Grid Elec­tric. “We are build­ing a plat­form to pow­er mil­lions of homes and busi­ness­es in the com­ing years, and DBL is an incred­i­ble part­ner to help us achieve our vision. They have seen first­hand through their ear­ly invest­ment in SolarCi­ty how to build a mar­ket leader in solar leasing.”

“Off Grid Electric’s social and envi­ron­men­tal mis­sion com­bined with the dis­ci­pline and dri­ve inher­ent in its entre­pre­neur­ial cul­ture makes it a per­fect fit for DBL’s ‘dou­ble bot­tom line’ approach to busi­ness and social change,” said Nan­cy Pfund. “As our firm’s first invest­ment in an inter­na­tion­al busi­ness, we are excit­ed to bring the ben­e­fits of impact invest­ing to peo­ple and fam­i­lies beyond the Unit­ed States, and feel hon­ored to join the Off-Grid Elec­tric team.”

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