Ghana-headquartered PEG Africa has announced that it has raised $13.5m through a syndicated multi-currency loan and an equity funding round. The funds will be used to expand the company’s operations in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. PEG Africa provides loans for off-grid customers who earn as little as $5 each day for solar home systems and other consumer goods on a pay-as-you-go basis, controlling the assets remotely until repayment is completed.
Washington DC based SunFunder arranged and participated in the loan, whose other lenders were responsAbility Investments AG – which manages the $34m responsibility Energy Access Fund, established with the Shell Foundation and World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation as anchor investor – Utrecht headquartered social investor Oikocredit, Global Partnerships, and Palladium Impact Investments. SunFunder recently arranged a $6m syndicated loan facility for SolarNow, where responsAbility and Oikocredit were also lenders.
Blue Haven Initiative – a family office impact investor launched by Liesel Pritzker Simmons and Ian Simmons in 2012 – led an equity funding round for PEG Africa, the second PEG has undertaken. Paris-based Energy Access Ventures, sub-Saharan Africa focussed impact investor group Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P) through its €54m I&P Afrique Entrepreneurs fund, Engie Rassembleurs d’Energies, philanthropic investor Acumen, and Netherlands registered family office PCG Investments, all bought into the round.
“With this funding, PEG Africa will be able to reach a major milestone of extending energy and financing to half a million people”, PEG Africa chief executive Hugh Whalan said. “We are excited that we can now accelerate our growth plans in key West African markets. It is a testament to the quality of the opportunity that all previous investors have participated in the series B equity financing.”
