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EASE Raises $9.5 Million to Expand AI-Enabled Medical Imaging And Surgical Robotics In South Africa And Ghana
EASE provides hospitals, clinics, and specialist practices with high-value medical equipment through pay-per-use and managed-service models rather than requiring providers to purchase systems outright.
- Categories
- Finance, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Hidden Solution to Off-Grid Solar’s $21 Billion Funding Gap: How Open Source Can Multiply the Impact of Every Dollar Invested
The energy access sector has a math problem. According to Vivien Barnier at the EnAccess Foundation, closing the last-mile electricity gap will require $21 billion in investment for off-grid solar alone, yet in 2024, total investment in off-grid solar companies fell by 30%, landing at just under $300 million. Given the size of this gap, he argues that calls for additional funding alone are not enough, and that a new approach is needed, one that can multiply the impact of every dollar already committed: open source. He explores why open source infrastructure in energy access — including shared software, open hardware designs, interoperability standards and open data platforms — is fundamental to the sector's growth.
- Categories
- Energy, Finance, Technology
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PAYGo’s Credit Problem is Putting Off-Grid Solar at Risk: Why the Sector Needs to Separate Sales from Lending
Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGo) solar has brought light and power to millions of rural households, demonstrating that they will use the installment payment model to purchase assets that improve their lives. But as Willem Nolens at in24 argues, the sector is now confronting a credit problem that puts both PAYGo businesses and their customers at risk, as low repayment rates are leading to power and asset loss among households across sub-Saharan Africa. He explores the causes of this challenge, and argues that the solution lies in splitting the sales and lending elements of PAYGO solar into separate providers.
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Acumen Invests $5 Million in Sun King to Scale Pay-As-You-Go Solar Energy Access in Zambia
Acumen’s equity investment is aimed at catalyzing local currency debt and providing energy access to nearly 5.6 million people.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Sun King Joins Kenya’s Growing Smartphone Financing Race
"Sun King’s move comes as Kenya’s smartphone market becomes harder to simply define by ownership."
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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When ‘Patient Capital’ isn’t Patient Enough: How Mismatched Funder Timelines in PAYGo Solar are Holding Back Energy Access in Africa
The energy access conversation in Africa is usually framed around deployment, with success defined by connection targets, cost reduction and rural reach. But Kolawole Osinowo at the FATE Institute argues that these goals don't address a binding constraint for companies working at the last mile: the time it takes for households to repay the solar assets they bought via PAYGo financing. As he explains, the PAYGo model spreads out payments for the benefit of the consumer, but it adds the cost of waiting to the provider’s balance sheet — and that cost later spreads to the company’s investors. And though much of the capital that supports energy access presents itself as patient, willing to wait for these PAYGo assets to be repaid, in practice, these investors often behave otherwise. He discusses the impacts of this mismatch, and explores how capital can be structured for better alignment with PAYGo timelines.
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D.light Takes PAYGo Solar From Impact Funds to the London Stock Exchange
The listing brings d.light’s cumulative PAYGo receivables purchasing capacity to $1 billion — a milestone that few in the off-grid energy sector thought achievable when the company pioneered the first-ever PAYGo securitisation back in 2020.
- Categories
- Energy, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Record Sales Highlight Off-Grid Solar’s Critical Role in Electrification
The East Africa region and Nigeria experienced the highest sales, with subsidies and results-based financing (RBF) programmes helping expand affordability and accelerate market expansion, pushing sales of products purchased through pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) up by almost 50%.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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