Angaza, a Pay-As-You-Go software company, with offices in San Francisco and Nairobi, has raised $10.5 million in a series B funding round to scale its solution. This funding round was led by Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, joined by Rethink Impact, Salesforce Ventures, Social Capital, and the Stanford StartX Fund.
With the previous Series A funding of $4 million in 2015, this makes it $16 million to date.
Angaza Pay-As-You-Go solution allows someone to buy into a solar device, like a lantern, pay it off incrementally, and thus get off using polluting fossil fuels for lighting and power.
“This funding milestone is a testament to the power of partnerships which can collectively deliver affordable, clean energy to millions,” said Lesley Marincola, Chief Executive Officer at Angaza. “Angaza is excited to leverage this financing to further enhance the technology that enables our manufacturing and distribution partners to quickly and confidently scale their Pay-As-You-Go operations.”
In the last two years, Angaza has reached 2 million new solar users in 30 developing countries, thus enabling them to switch from fossil fuel to solar energy.
Angaza’s solution consists of embedding a hardware subcircuit and firmware into a solar or other green energy device which provides both internal energy metering, so the device can deactivate if the pre-paid energy has been consumed; and a mobile wireless connection, so payment information can be sent to the unit, from which usage and diagnostic information can be remotely collected. The technology is integrated into clean energy devices to allow these devices to be paid for over time, in small increments.
The startup earns recurring revenue (a percentage of the transaction fees) off of every payment that is processed by its software platform. It also collects licensing fees from manufacturing partners who use its embedded technology.
