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InfraCo Africa
ADA is a not-for-profit association established in Luxembourg. Created in 1994, ADA plays a pivotal role in the development of financial inclusion and entrepreneurship in developing countries, combining product innovation, capacity building and advice to an impact investment fund.
ADA’s action, based on innovative approaches, is designed to reinforce both the autonomy and capacities of microfinance institutions (MFIs), professional associations and incubators, but also governments in their efforts to support and structure the microfinance sector at the regional and national level.
From 2011 until today, ADA has led several initiatives to facilitate access to renewable energy and/or energy-efficient equipment for vulnerable populations in Peru, Central America, the Philippines and Tunisia. In total, ADA supported 18 MFIs to develop financial products (credits or micro-leasing) and awareness-raising actions to enable individuals, entrepreneurs or producers to get access to mini-solar-home systems, solar lamps, solar dryers, solar water heaters, solar refrigerators, solar water pumps, efficient cooking stoves, etc.
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Benoo is a company founded in 2015, based in Bordeaux and Lomé. We offer a leasing service for companies via a mobile digital platform. The service is aimed at rural and peri-urban African businesses in need of productive uses of energy.
Our leasing solution allows entrepreneurs to have access to equipment and financing, adapted to their current needs. The offer is 100% digitized and accessible via a web and mobile platform: rubize.io. The offer suits off-grid energy distributors aiming to increase productive uses.
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Camco Clean Energy (Camco) is a climate and impact fund manager, leading the clean energy transition in emerging markets. It offers practical and valuable financing solutions, pairing the discipline of a development bank with the agility of a small private company.
The company was formed in Nairobi and the UK in 1989 and has a proven track record in sustainable finance and hands-on experience in emerging markets that enables global access and local presence. Funds under management include the USD 200 million Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP) and the newly formed Spark commercial and industrial (“C&I”) finance platform. Camco became a Green Climate Fund Accredited Entity in January 2021. The company has offices in Accra, Helsinki, Johannesburg, London, Nairobi and Toronto.
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CrossBoundary Energy Access is part of the CrossBoundary Group, an investment and advisory firm whose mission is to unlock capital to make a strong return and a lasting difference in underserved markets globally. CBEA was launched in January 2019, with funding from Ceniarth and Rockefeller Foundation as Africa’s first project finance facility for mini-grids.
It has since also secured financing from the DOEN Foundation to help implement its vision. CBEA invests long-term equity and debt into mini-grids through a project finance structure, delivering first-time grid-quality power to rural households and businesses.
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For almost 60 years DEG, a subsidiary of KfW, has been a reliable partner to private-sector companies and financial service providers operating in developing markets. Our customers are based in developing and emerging countries, Germany and other industrialised nations. We provide them with long-term investment capital, which is often difficult to obtain, particularly in developing countries.
What is more, we provide our customers with ongoing, in-depth advice and support to help them design their investments and companies efficiently and sustainably. With our Business Support Services and range of promotional programmes we additionally contribute to lasting entrepreneurial success. With our commitment, we promote social justice as well as ecological and economical sustainability. As a development finance institution, we advocate decent working conditions and the protection of natural resources in accordance with international standards. The companies we finance contribute to sustainable development in accordance with the United Nations' SDGs.
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For DRE projects and businesses, develoPPP, a funding programme of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), is of specific relevance. It is aimed at companies that want to invest sustainably in a developing or emerging country and expand their local operations and targets companies at the start-up and early growth/growth stages:
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EDFI ElectriFI is an EU-funded impact investment facility, financing in early-stage private companies and projects, focusing on new/improved electricity connections as well as on generation capacity from sustainable energy sources in emerging markets. By combining technical assistance and risk capital, EDFI ElectriFI can take greater risks than other investors.
EDFI ElectriFI’s activities de-risk investments and allow private investors and development finance institutions to deploy capital that they could not have invested otherwise. The offered financing instruments are fully flexible to corporate or project needs and range from EUR 0.5 to 10 million, capped at 50% of the project cost/funding round. ElectriFI does not provide grants, concessional loans, or other low-cost capital.
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Energy Access Ventures is a leading early-stage investment fund in Africa. With over 40 years of investment experience in Africa, EAV is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the emerging smart, distributed, cost-effective infrastructure market segment. EAV has carved out a reputation as a hands-on investor that works closely with its portfolio companies to capture the significant opportunity in Africa.
EAV’s first fund was raised in February 2015 and is EUR 75 milion in size. The fund is sponsored by Schneider Electric and is managed by Aster Capital. Its investors are CDC Group (UK), managing funds for the UK Department for International Development, the European Investment Bank, the Fonds d'Investissement et de Soutien aux Entreprises en Afrique (FISEA) held by Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and managed by Proparco, the Fonds Français pour l'Environnement Mondial (FFEM), administered by AFD, Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden (FMO), the Netherlands Development Finance Company the OPEC.
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Gaia Impact Fund is a venture capital firm specialising in renewable energy. We invest and build long-term partnerships with start-ups and SMEs operating in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia with a strong environmental and social focus.
In regions where access to the power grid is expensive or difficult, we support businesses enabling sustainable and affordable energy provision to local communities. In regions where energy mixes are highly carbonised, we support technological innovations and business models enabling a cost-efficient diffusion of renewable energy on a large scale.
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Green Climate Ventures provides expertise and patient capital to the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in the areas of rural electrification, renewable energy, agribusiness, and cooling. We are exclusively equity investors in early-stage social impact companies.
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KfW Development Bank is the German development finance institution supporting the German Federal Government to achieve its goals in development policy and international development cooperation. On behalf of the German Federal Government, KfW finances programmes and projects that mainly involve public sector players in developing countries and emerging economies.
It bases its support on the different prerequisites and conditions in the respective partner country. Which financing model is used depends on the level of debt, the economic strength, the level of development and the capacity of the project partner, but also on the type of project. The financing models include pure grants and loans from budget funds, but also loans in which budget funds are mixed with KfW's own funds. The conditions for such loans are particularly favourable (interest rate, term). In addition, KfW grants loans for which only own funds are used at risk-adequate conditions.
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As part of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), InfraCo Africa works in frontier markets of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to mobilise private investment in pioneering infrastructure. As one of the most experienced co-developers of sustainable infrastructure in the region, InfraCo Africa develops both pioneering renewable power generation projects and other types of infrastructure across SSA.
Successfully developing infrastructure requires risk capital, patience and expertise. InfraCo Africa is unique in providing all three, investing into early-stage projects which need the financial commitment and expertise that InfraCo Africa can bring, providing equity to close a financing gap and start construction, or investing into innovative solutions that need support to scale up or to pilot new projects or enter new markets. InfraCo Africa’s support reduces the risks and costs, ensuring that projects are developed to the highest standards: from concept to a financeable investment opportunity, to a proven operating business. InfraCo Africa is funded by the governments of the UK (FCDO), the Netherlands (DGIS) and Switzerland (SECO).
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SunFunder is the leading debt financing provider for distributed solar in Africa and other emerging regions, having closed over USD 140 million for nearly 60 companies working in off-grid solar, mini-grids, agri-solar and other commercial solar projects.
SunFunder has offices in Nairobi, London, and Paris. Our mission is to pioneer and scale climate investments in emerging markets and underserved communities. We are now expanding into new climate investment areas and new markets, including in Asia.
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TCX Fund is a development finance initiative, funded by donors, DFIs and impact investors, whose single purpose it to hedge currency risk in developing markets. Its principal transaction structure is a hedge to international lenders (DFIs and impact investors), allowing those lenders to provide synthetic local-currency loans (synthetic meaning that the loans are indexed to the local currency of the borrower, but disbursed and serviced in USD or EUR).
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TCX supports all renewable energy sectors. The fund works with DFIs and impact investors and will in principle not interfere with their lending decisions. |
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TCX is active in all DAC countries where hedge instruments are not made available by commercial banks or are poorly accessible. In practice, all lenders in principle have access to a commercial bank or TCX hedging capacity and all lenders can therefore in principle lend in any local currency. |
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The fund works with DFIs and impact investors and will in principle not interfere with their lending decisions. |
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The only product that TCX offers is a (non-deliverable) currency hedge, either a cross-currency swap or an FX forward. TCX can offer these products at any required tenor (up to 15 years and longer). Typically, only debt transactions are hedged with TCX. However, equity investors can also hedge currency risk with TCX, if required. The term “non-deliverable” mean TCX does not actually exchange local currency for hard currency and vice versa. A non-deliverable swap (NDS) and non-deliverable forward (NDF) are provided to lenders to hedge synthetic local currency loans. |
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TCX supports local currency loans provided by international (“off-shore”) lenders. Recipients of these loans will receive USD or EUR at disbursements and must service the loan with USD or EUR, but repayments are indexed to the borrower’s local currency; as a result, the borrower does not run currency risk on the loan; that risk is with the lender who transfers it to TCX with the NDS or NDF product. |
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TCX has Technical Assistance (TA) resources and can provide professional training/capacity building on all areas concerning currency risk, such as currency risk management, local currency loan products, hedging strategy, local currency funding strategy, derivative products. |
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Triple Jump is an impact-focused investment manager that provides meaningful and responsible investment opportunities in emerging markets. We believe that opportunities are not spread equally around the world, but talented people are. By providing financing and support to companies in emerging markets, we aim to empower individuals to improve their quality of life.
Managed by Triple Jump, the Energy Entrepreneurs Growth Fund (EEGF) provides catalytic financing for early- and growth-stage companies in Sub-Saharan Africa operating in the access to energy ecosystem. EEGF intends to accelerate the achievement of the United Nations’ SDG-7, which aims to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” by 2030. The fund is designed to offer patient, risk-tolerant and flexible capital combined with targeted technical assistance. This type of capital addresses an important gap in the sector and seeks to provide a bridge towards bringing in commercial scale-up investors.
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Please note that views expressed in the Co-Editorial, the In Focus section and the Special Feature of the newsletter, are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect ARE’s opinion.
