Renewable energy provider SolarX completes Series A round with funding from EAV

MALI – SolarX, a West African renewable energy equipment provider, has raised additional funding from Energy Access Ventures (EAV), an early-stage fund that invests in decentralized energy companies across Sub-Saharan Africa.

The company has also announced that it has completed its Series A round with this tranche, hinting at a staggered close.

SolarX Africa said it will utilize this new equity and quasi-equity funding to finance a pipeline of projects for commercial and industrial clients in Mali and Burkina Faso.

The firm develops, finances, and offers operations and maintenance services to solar assets, focusing on commercial and industrial clients through a leasing model.

“These funds will be used to execute on signed projects and to expand our position as a key player in West Africa’s commercial and industrial space,” said Karim Ghammache, founder and CEO of SolarX Africa.

“We view our new investment as a major milestone for SolarX Africa and as a critical steppingstone to facilitating their expansion plan in the region.”

Vladimir Dugin – Partner, EAV

“We hope this investment demonstrates the need for more capital inflow into the region to match the growing demand for reliable and clean energy solutions from leading businesses.”

SolarX Africa was founded by Omnium’s management team, which experienced energy-related pain points during their 20 years of manufacturing in Mali.

“We are proud to see the company hit their milestones and deliver on the initial pipeline despite the COVID-19 crisis and other macro challenges. We view our new investment as a major milestone for SolarX Africa and as a critical steppingstone to facilitating their expansion plan in the region,” Vladimir Dugin, partner at EAV, said.

EAV’s first fund was raised in February 2015 with a corpus of €75 million. The fund was sponsored by French multinational Schneider Electric and is managed by Aster Capital in Paris. Its investors are CDC Group Plc, European Investment Bank, Proparco, AFD and FMO.

It didn’t disclose the funding amount, but this is a follow-on deal. EAV had initially invested in SolarX Africa in July 2020.

The funding round was to help it expand at home as well as in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

The funding round was led by Energy Access Ventures (EAV), an early-stage fund investing in decentralised energy companies across Sub-Saharan Africa, and the UK’s CDC Group, and will be used to help SolarX develop and operate projects in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.