The Electric Revolution: From Navigating Impacts of Oil & Gas to Powering East Africa’s EV Revolution
In this episode of Breaking the Blueprint, we sat with Melvyn Lubega, partner at Breega and co-founder of GO1, a trailblazer in the global edtech sector and one of Africa’s few unicorn success stories! Melvyn shares his journey of co-founding and scaling GO1, the challenges and opportunities of building a unicorn, and his vision for leveraging technology to unlock Africa’s potential.
Insight Terra is proud to announce the successful close of its series A extension funding round of $5.7 million to rapidly scale its AI-driven greenhouse gas (GHG) and environmental risk platform. Alastair Bovim, Co-Founder and CEO of Insight Terra says the investment shows a strong commitment to tech-enabled solutions to address climate change and a significant investment into innovation, safety, and emerging climate-tech for extractive industries and beyond.
Paras and Vlad sat with Stephen Fleischer, founder of The Fleischer Foundation. A great example of grit to influence systemic change. After working as a primary school teacher in Nairobi's Mukuru Kwa Njenga community, Stephen witnessed firsthand the barriers preventing students from accessing quality education. Determined to make a difference, he established The Fleischer Foundation in 2016, which has since supported over 100 students in bridging the gap between primary and secondary education.
Our podcast, Breaking the Blueprint, delves into the realities behind building successful businesses in Africa, highlighting critical drivers of success and failure for early-stage businesses. In these conversations, we leverage our decade long investment expertise backing businesses in Africa and share actionable insights and lessons learnt.
E3 Capital is proud to announce an investment in Wattnow, a Climate tech startup specializing in energy management systems. Founded in 2018 by Issam Smaali in Tunisia, Wattnow leverages AI and real-time data analytics to optimize energy consumption for businesses, reducing costs and carbon footprints.
Plentify has closed a 50% oversubscribed funding round from top African and North American venture investors to fuel its growth in South Africa and commence international expansion.
Africa’s digital divide entrenches the continent’s existing inequalities and undermines its pursuit of stable, inclusive growth. The pace at which this divide can be closed will be determined by the availability of capital to the continent’s internet service providers (ISPs). Africa is the least connected continent on the planet. Only 37% of its population has access to the internet and only 12% enjoy ‘meaningful’ connectivity. Af rica is also the most unequally connected continent; rural populations have less access than city dwellers, the old less than the young and women less than men.
YoLa Fresh, a Moroccan agritech startup building a transparent and sustainable fresh food supply network, today announced it has secured a $7 million pre-Series A funding round. The round was led by Al Mada Ventures with participation from Algebra Ventures, E3 Capital, Janngo Capital, and FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development Bank.
Across Africa, a stark divide separates the connected from the unconnected. Limited internet access and prohibitive prices are substantial barriers that hinder the continent's economic potential, leaving millions stranded in the digital age. Recognizing this critical issue, E3 Capital’s panel ‘Where the Hell is the Money for Connectivity Start Ups’ at the Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi, brought together diverse stakeholders working to bridge the digital divide. Their focus - catalyze the funding to power connectivity companies across the continent.
In continuing to work towards sustainably bridging Africa’s digital divide, E3 Capital is proud to announce its investment in Badili Africa’s (Badili) Seed funding round. Badili provides access to top-tier smartphone brands for consumers in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, utilising local refurbishment to offer devices at a fraction of the price of new models without compromising quality.
The term ‘Fixed broadband’ describes internet connectivity other than the data services provided by mobile network operators (‘Mobile broadband’). There are a variety of wired and wireless technologies available to fixed broadband ISPs; each technology differs in terms of the capital investment it demands and the range and bandwidth it offers. An ISP must match technology and revenue model to the market opportunity to be commercially sustainable
Flashback to last week when we hosted our first-ever E3 Capital Showcase, the first of many showcases to come!
Meaningful connectivity in Africa is scarce outside the big cities; mobile networks have neither the coverage nor the affordability to connect rural populations. Fixed broadband has the reach and the economics to bridge the gap; a few ISPs have blazed a trail, the opportunity for new entrants is massive.
Nairobi, Kenya: Untapped Global, a revenue-based asset financing platform, successfully secured US$3 million in seed funding led by E3 Capital. The investment from E3 Capital extends Untapped Global’s previous debt and equityfunding from early-stage venture and angel investors to over US$14 million. The E3 Capital and Untapped partnership will seek to accelerate the adoption of climate-smart solutions such as e-mobility across the continent.
Nuru, one of Africa’s pioneering renewable energy-powered metrogrid companies, has announced the successful close of over $40m in Series B equity funding and anticipates the close of an additional $28m in project finance by the end of the month. The funds will enable Nuru to commence construction on 13.7 MWp of projects, which will significantly expand its existing operating assets in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and help bridge the enormous energy gap in the country.
This report is the first of four reports exploring the fixed broadband connectivity environment in Africa. The reports will help the reader to better understand this market, the opportunities which present themselves, how various operators / service providers approach this market from a business model and technology perspective, the funding mechanisms, and the opportunities which present themselves in the fixed broadband connectivity market in Africa.
E3 Capital and Lion's Head Global Partners have announced a first close for the E3 Low Carbon Economy Fund for Africa ('E3LCEF'). The early-stage venture fund will focus on investing in next-generation low-carbon entrepreneurs in Africa scaling new technologies and business models enabled by the low carbon economy. The fund will invest in early-stage companies and hold significant capital for follow-on in later rounds. The fund has had its first close at $48.1 million and targets a second and final close of up to $100 million within 12 months.E3
Last mile electrification and universal connectivity have been hailed as a way to drive innovative, inclusive and sustainable growth for the continent. But, today, only 40% of the African continent is online, and nearly 600 million lack access to electricity. These significant barriers are hindering Africa's social and economic development.
The fixed internet sector in the African continent needs more investment to expand connectivity to low-income populations. But there are significant hurdles, such as insufficient investment allocated towards efforts to expand connectivity and inadequate awareness about the sector — which can leave investors hesitant to make the leap forward in providing funds.
There are a myriad of steps governments can take, even when resources are limited, to increase access to fixed internet for their populations and ultimately to meaningful connectivity — affordable internet of a high enough quality to improve the quality of a person’s life beyond what is possible with basic coverage. This includes strong policy and regulatory environments that harbor competition and innovation, according to a group of experts who met virtually to discuss creating enabling regulatory environments for national broadband rollouts.
Efforts to advance affordable, quality internet connectivity across the African continent face a myriad of hurdles. There is not enough late-stage funding to bring companies to scale, nor are there sufficient partnerships enabling last mile connectivity. Investors in the continent often have a shallow understanding of the sector, making it difficult to convince them on its importance and potential upside. The connectivity sector should, however, be an easy sell: it is crucial as a foundation to the advancement of key goals across a variety of sectors.
A webinar from E3 Capital.
Nairobi, Kenya: The Carbon Value Exchange (Cavex) has successfully closed its seed funding round, led by E3 Capital with participation from FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi), to bring its digital carbon financing platform to full commercial scalability. The E3 Capital and Cavex partnership will also provide an opportunity for E3 Capital’s existing and future portfolio companies to access the carbon markets through the platform.
While a lot is known about how many people are connected to the internet, the number of people “meaningfully connected” — with affordable and quality access — is much smaller and not clearly defined.During a recent roundtable discussion, experts discussed what it means to be meaningfully connected, the ways in which this level of connection should be measured, and the importance of investing in meaningful connectivity in emerging markets.
An estimated 2.9 billion people globally have never used the internet and the vast majority of those people live in developing countries.But strategic investments can work to reduce that disparity with increased access to connectivity reaping both social and economic rewards, according to participants in a recent webinar that brought together experts working in the connectivity investment space on the African continent.
The Beyond Access Project, a joint venture by E3 Capital, USAID and FMO is targeting to close the digital divide in Africa as calls for achieving global digital connectivity are on the rise. According to the UN, an estimated 3.7 billion people, almost half of the world’s population, currently do not have access to the internet. The least developed countries are also the least connected, with only 19% of the people online.
A multi stakeholder collaborative discussion on how best to catalyse private sector investment to achieve the overarching goal of bridging Africa’s digital gap.
Energy Access Ventures rebrands to E3 Capital, announces the launch of its follow-on fund E3 Low Carbon Economy Fund I.
Energy Access Ventures (EAV) announces partnership with Lion’s Head Global Partners (Lion’s Head)EAV announces a partnership with Lion’s Head for its second Africa-focused venture capital fund investing in clean-tech, new generation climate (resource) efficient businesses, and other related B2B and B2C businesses.
