The South-South/South-East Angel Investors Network (SSE Angels) has made its first investment since its launch in March 2018. The SSE Angels invested $5,000 and $20,000 respectively in Alphotazi Farms and GreenAge Technologies.
The financial endowment made by the SSE Angels will see GreenAge Technologies become the most funded tech startup in South-Eastern Nigeria after previously winning $15,000 at Genesys Ignite in November 2018 and raising an undisclosed amount from a private investor.
According to Uchechukwu Ogechukwu(Co-founder), this brings the total venture funding raised by GreenAge to about $60,000.
GreenAge’s recent fund endowment will go in a long way to help it fulfill its mission to provide access to electricity to 80 million deprived Nigerians by making available an alternative cheap power source and also, to scale the production facility of inverters, solar panels and it’s yet to be released energy kits.
The alternative power project began as an idea nursed by five undergraduates of the University of Nigeria who subsequently turned it into a project required for their completion of studies. Led by Uchechukwu Ogechukwu, the five young men built a device that converts sunlight into electricity to complete these projects, it worked and quickly, everyone wanted one because, in Nigeria, everyone shares common ground in experiencing power deficiency.
Since then, GreenAge Technologies has metamorphosed from just a quick power fix to become an original equipment manufacturer of renewable energy products from locally sourced materials and a company to reckon with in the off-grid electric supply market in Nigeria.
SSE Angel’s other portfolio company involved in its first investment deal, Alphotazi Farms, also based in Enugu – got $5,000 to hack to the production process of cassava flakes ‘Garri’.
Garri is a staple food in Nigeria hence the huge market. However, the production and processing of Cassava in Nigeria are done majorly by poor rural farmers without efficient modern equipment. Alphotazi Farms will be building modular Cassava processing plants close to farms and helping farmers sell both online and offline via its e-commerce arm: Garri.ng.
Alphotozi is heavily committed to the production of Garri and hopes to curb wastage while it improves the quality of the product.
In a press release, member of the SSE Angels, Charles Emembolu said, “I believe the teams are solving global problems with local resources and will scale with the right support, mentoring and a more inclusive ecosystem.”
Both companies are looking forward to expanding their operations as GreenAge has stated that it will continue to expand operations to more markets across Nigeria with the automation of the production process and doubling the size of its engineering talent pool.
On the other hand, Alphotazi Farms plans to fire up its operations in Benue state where it currently operates and will build more modular processing plants for cassava across states in Nigeria.
