Zola Electric, the Amsterdam-based renewable energy firm, has a $90 million investment comprising $45 million of equity and $45 million of debt.
The equity part of the funding was led by TotalEnergies Ventures – the venture capital arm of TotalEnergies SE, DBL Partners, Helios Investment Partners, Vulcan Capital, plus Lyndon and Pete Rive – the founders of SolarCity. In addition, Electron Capital Partners, a New York-based public market clean energy investor is also supporting this capital raise.
For the debt funding, it was provided by FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, and Sunfunder, a solar finance company providing debt capital to solar enterprises in emerging markets.
Proceeds will be used to develop next-generation hardware and software technology, focused on bringing reliable, affordable, and clean energy to Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Founded in 2011 by Erica Mackey, Xavier Helgesen and Joshua Pierce, Zola Electric is solving Energy Access and Energy Equality in emerging markets. Zola products are used by more than 1.5 million users and more than 300,000 households and businesses in various African countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Namibia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Zambia and Nigeria.
Bill Lenihan, the CEO of Zola Electric said: “More than 2.2 billion people in the world lack access to reliable and affordable energy. We needed an energy ladder and a series of products that were all connected in some way but that solved different problems for these 2.2 billion people. So we started to grow and provide more energy in these systems.”
He adds: “This group contributes more than only capital to the equation. They bring a strategic benefit to this company and an awareness that is above the capital. This is the group that showed their confidence and desire to really solve what is a global problem.”
