SunFi aims to be the fastest way for Nigerians to find, finance and manage solar power • TechCrunch

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my categorya Nigerian clean-tech startup that connects people and businesses who want access to solar energy to payment plans tailored to their needs, has raised $2.325 million in seed funding.

The self-described financial power technology platform has received backing from major investors in Nairobi[e] and SCM Capital Asset Management, and co-investors such as Voltron Capital, Norrsken Impact Accelerator, Ventures Platform, and Sovereign Capital.

On a call with TechCrunch, CEO Rotimi Thomas He said the investment will help SunFi grow its operations and improve its capabilities to recommend the best systems at the lowest cost to customers.

SunFi isn’t Thomas’ first rodeo at the helm of an energy startup. In 2018, he co-founded Aspire, a solar installer company drawing on the knowledge he gained in college about renewable energy and has worked in several roles related to power, gas and power projects across Nigeria and other African countries, including a five-year tenure. At Siemens as head of market development. Although that business morphed into SunFi three years later, launching the Aspire was the first lifelong journey Thomas envisioned in an effort to fix the electricity problems faced by individuals and businesses in Nigeria, he said on the call.

Nigerian households and businesses have little or no access to reliable and affordable solar technology, reducing their reliance on grid-based power that suffers from inadequate generation capacity and fails to serve most of Nigeria’s 200 million people who live in rural areas. Switching to off-grid solutions that use solar power is an option for those people who need electricity for simple necessities like lighting, heating and communications. This is what Rotimi’s former upstart did. I aspire He ran an “Energy as a Service” business model that has helped install more than 500 solar systems for individuals and businesses. But despite being marketed as a cheap option, rural electrification in the form of mini-grids and solar systems can be prohibitively expensive for these sub-consumers because of their lower purchasing power.

“Customers have always asked us if there is a way they can pay for solar systems in instalments,” said Thomas. “Because of that, we went to banks and tried to work with them to fund this type of payment, but we realized that banks also had a problem: They couldn’t accelerate credit for customers to fund retail solar systems when they didn’t understand the technical risks involved in owning them.”

Further market research revealed that other solar providers had the same problem of asking customers to pay in instalments. Thomas & Co-Founders – COO Tomio Egon and CTO Olaoluwa Faniyi – decided to extend credit and began leasing these systems into what later became SunFi. They believed that as a group, they could manage the technical risks involved in solar energy systems and that customers were very likely to pay because they valued solar energy systems and saw them as important parts of the energy infrastructure.

think about it. Retail solar power systems are marketed by word of mouth, but with fragmented distribution and minimal avenues for financing, platforms such as SunFi that act as aggregators become attractive to customers.

“The challenge customers have with solar providers is that they want solutions they can pay tiny for; however, these solar platforms cannot deliver. Because banks fear the technical risks involved, they need something in between to talk to providers of We are looking for a good solar energy and installation work with good capital for customers who are looking for the right solution,” said Thomas.

SunFi creates value for these clean energy investors by eliminating the technical and fiduciary risks involved in financing solar solutions portfolios, and opening up avenues for lending as a service to clean energy providers. Since it was officially launched last February, SunFi has engaged more than 40 solar system vendors on its platform in various stages of scrutiny; 10 are its primary suppliers, who have served more than 129 clients. Over the past year, the one-year-old energy startup has deployed more than $600,000 to these clients through its partnerships with financial institutions.

The Nigeria-based power company provides customers with two payment methods: a lease-to-own contract, where after an initial deposit, customers pay in installments before paying off the solar system, and a subscription model, where customers pay for the use of the solar system monthly. SunFi’s revenue comes from margin on the lease-to-own model and subscription fees from the latter. The company said it is working on a third revenue stream where it will help solar providers fund inventory.

Some startups are already funding solar systems with one or more entities, such as Carbon. But Thomas does not consider them competitors. The same goes for solar system providers. Rather, most of these platforms are partners since they already meet a need in the market and are brought together by SunFi’s functionality. “Because we had the unique experience of being a start-up solar provider and saw the frustrations and challenges with installations in Nigeria, we took all that technical and fiduciary knowledge to build a system that we hope will work for customers, solar service providers and banks,” said the CEO.

“SunFi also has a portal for the solar provider to login, track and manage their business to build several types of products to market to clients and get financing. Investors have a dashboard to manage their portal to track how their money is being spent in terms of deploying it to portfolio management or retail clients. So we are built as a fintech company for the space Clean technology, which does not exist in Nigeria.”

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SunFi Team. Image credits: my category

Cleantech with fintech features will look to enhance their platform over the next 12-18 months with this funding. It also intends to convert more than 4,000 customers within the same time frame as the team of 29 continues to grow. CleanTech is in talks to raise additional third-party capital, likely debt, from commercial banks and other financing partners to funnel that money through the system and fund all of the energy platform’s demands to sponsor this year.

“SunFi has the potential to transform the way households and businesses across Nigeria access clean energy by creating a marketplace for clean energy products combined with flexible payment options – all tailored to the customer’s financial and energy needs,” said Lindsay Holley. – Contractor, Partner and Head of Project Builder at Factor[e] on investment. “Such platforms have opened up access to clean energy in other markets but are not yet present in Africa. This kind of innovation and disruption is why we decided to be part of the SunFi journey…”

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