By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s top energy startup company, Rensource, has raised a $20 million Series A investment from African venture capital fund, CRE Venture Capital and impact investor, the Omidyar network, to expand its footprint in the power sector of Nigeria, which is presently in comatose.
Rensource is a solar energy firm dedicated to providing effective and efficient renewable energy to enterprises with a special focus on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across the country. It was established in 2016.
The new funding comes on the heel of the company’s need to stamp its foothold, scale up its technology offerings and expand its reach across Nigeria and eventually Africa.
It was learned that contributions to the funding also came from other investors such as Inspired Evolution, Proparco, EDPR, I&P, Sin Capital and Yuzura Honda.
With a flexible payment scheme; daily, weekly, or monthly fees, Rensource saves merchants from the extra costs of fuelling their generators, which is important to most businesses in Nigeria.
According to founder and Chief Executive Officer of the startup, Mr Admeola Adesina, decentralizing the power is the best solution to Nigeria’s energy woes.
“We believe that simultaneously greening and decentralizing its power infrastructure is the only way to navigate Nigeria out of its current state of energy poverty.
“Pursuing this with a focus on the millions of small-businesses that drive our economy creates a massive multiplier effect whose benefit accrues to all,” he said.
Rensource sees green and decentralised energy as the solution to Nigeria and Africa’s electricity problem, noting that 1000 megawatts of power are needed for one million people and in a country like Nigeria with 200 million, 200,000 Megawatts of power is required.
However, there is a serious shortage as the country’s grid has 12,000 Megawatts of installed capacity, with only about 4,000 produced for its citizens.
The secured $20 million fund, according to Rensource, will expand its offerings to businesses beyond energy and offer them B2B (Business-to-Business) services and using the new service called “Spaces O2O” (Spaces Offline to Online), the company wants to provide SMEs with supply-chain services, business-analytics and working capital options, to accelerate their productivity.
“Our push into O2O is a natural step that leverages our existing infrastructure to further empower the merchants we serve. We aim to bring connect over one-million merchants in the next 5 years,” Mr Ademola said.
The company operates in six Nigerian states; Lagos, Kano, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, and Edo where it builds and deploys micro-utilities: solar-panels, batteries, and a power management system to the areas it serves.
With the new capital in place, Rensource plans to expand to 100 markets within Nigeria, and to additional African countries within the next 3 years.
Dipo Olowookere