About us
We are on a mission. To mobilise millions of pounds to protect the planet and achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. And we’re doing that by making people-powered impact investing a mainstream and accessible pursuit.
We see money as a positive force for change. By using the power of finance and technology we can connect everyday people with pioneering sustainable businesses who need access to flexible and affordable working capital in order to provide families and businesses across Africa and beyond with access to affordable life-changing solar electricity through pay-as-you-go payment plans.
Together we enable solar businesses and other sustainable organisations to raise the investment they need to scale and grow in Africa and other emerging economies.
By connecting profit-for-purpose businesses with retail investors we’re empowering them to fight climate change, reduce poverty, promote gender equality, provide affordable clean energy and improve health and wellbeing for all.
We do this by making impact investing accessible to all. We work with key strategic partners like UK aid, P4G and Good Energies Foundation to transform the finance sector. Revolutionising lending to new and emerging sustainable businesses by providing innovative financial products that people want to invest in to deliver a better world.
We know that people want to take action against the threats to our planet and society.
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The Energise Africa Story
Energise Africa as a concept was agreed in 2016 and realised in 2017, as a direct result of a public tender issued by UK aid and Virgin Unite. The idea was simple. Solar energy access in Africa was being constrained as traditional banks and financial institutions weren’t prepared to provide working capital finance to solar businesses. At the same time, families and small businesses couldn’t pay for the solar systems, so by connecting UK people directly to these solar businesses, Energise Africa would bridge the climate finance gap.
Over the past five years, with support from founding partners Ethex and Lendahand, we have been playing a transformational role in the finance sector. We use technology to innovate and provide investors with the products they want and sustainable businesses with the type of finance that they critically need to scale and grow. Making the right kind of impact on people and our planet.
Thanks to our community of over 4,500+ individual investors, we have raised over £32 million and made £16 million in repayments. That’s an amazing amount of people-powered finance, which has provided more than 850,000 people across 14 African countries with access to affordable and life changing solar energy. We have also supported over 8,000 small and micro-sized enterprises.
The next chapter will be an exciting one, as we look to expand our approach. The intention is to provide many more sustainable businesses in emerging economies with access to flexible finance to fill the $3.6 trillion annual climate finance gap. Enabling individual investors across Europe and beyond to take control of their money and make the world a better place.
Our major milestones include:
- 2016
Ethex and Lendahand awarded a tender by UK aid to set up Energise Africa
- 2017
Energise Africa officially launches
- 2018
P4G and Good Energies Foundation provide additional catalytic capital
- 2019
£10 million raised to provide more than 300,000 people with access to affordable solar energy across sub-Saharan Africa and ‘new investor guarantee’ launches
- 2020
Energise Africa receives P4G scale-up funding to support the platforms innovation and growth and shortlisted for Ashden Awards
- 2021
Energise Africa passes £21 million in people-powered finance, benefitting over 150 projects, 14 sustainable businesses and enabling 560,000 to have access to life-changing solar energy across 15 emerging economies. Energise Africa is awarded an United Nations Global Climate Action Award ahead of COP26