INVESTMENT APPROACH

INVEST THROUGHOUT THE VALUE CHAIN

We invest in designers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers of cooking solutions in Africa. We also invest in microfinance institutions, solar home system / connected asset finance companies, mini-grid operators, multi-product last-mile distributors, SaaS and IoT companies, and others that play a role in scaling up the adoption of clean and modern cooking energy solutions.

INVEST WITH TOP MANAGEMENT TEAMS

We back management teams with the market knowledge, domain expertise, business acumen, execution skills, and personal drive to make their companies successful. Most critically, we back teams with the highest degree of business ethics and personal integrity, and have a robust environmental, social and governance (ESG) management system from due diligence to portfolio management and ultimately monetization.

INVEST AT AN EARLY STAGE OF GROWTH

Our investment tickets range from $500,000 to $7 million in companies that have commercialized their product or service and have traction in their market(s). By investing at an early stage of growth, but not in pre-revenue start-ups, we avoid significant technology risk on solutions that have not yet demonstrated product/market fit.

OFFER MORE THAN JUST MONEY

We are the first clean and modern cooking energy-specialized investment fund globally, having been developed by market experts and investment professionals at the Clean Cooking Alliance, and Enabling Qapital, a leading impact investment advisory firm. We bring deep market and technology expertise, a long and successful investment track record, an extensive network, and aim to bring non-financial value to our portfolio companies to complement our financing.

LEVERAGE A FLEXIBLE TOOLKIT

We can invest debt or mezzanine capital, and in select instances, may consider an equity investment. We have also designed an innovative tripartite distributor financing instrument that allows us to partner with product companies to extend credit to their often smaller and less bankable last-mile distribution partners, in turn filling a key financing gap in the supply chain.