d.light, an affordable off-grid solar solutions firm has raised $10.5 million in funding to expand its operations and bring clean off-grid power to low-income families in Africa and Asia, using Pay-as-you-Go (PayGo) financing solutions.
The $10.5m comprise of $5 million in equity from new investor Norfund and $5.5 million in grant funding from Beyond the Grid and Shell Foundation. The $5 million equity investment in d.light is done by the co-investment vehicle, KLP Norfund Investments. KLP is Norway’s largest pension fund manager and participates with funding in this vehicle.
Recently the firm raised $22.5 million Series D and $7.5 million debt funding rounds, bringing the firm’s funding to over $40 million in four months.
According to Mark Davis, Head of Clean Energy investments of Norfund, “In countries where energy access is low for the vast majority, solar has the ability to impact people living there in a multitude of ways. We are proud to support d.light’s work to bring solar-powered solutions to rural households in these countries.”
d.light is a top provider of off-grid solar solutions and has commanding market share in emerging markets, with a focus on Africa and Asia. The company has impacted over 65 million people through its sales of more than 15 million solar light and power products in 62 countries. d.light continues to sell hundreds of thousands of units per month, while maintaining excellent quality at scale.
Since 2007, d.light has focused on raising the 2.3 billion people around the world without reliable access to electricity up the energy access ladder by giving them access to high-quality off-grid solar solutions. d.light is on track to empower 100 million lives by 2020 and is actively seeking partners to help the company achieve this goal.
“We are deeply grateful for the support of the investors in this latest funding round, which will help us empower more people in these regions,” said Ned Tozun, d.light CEO. “The demand for off-grid solar is taking off, and we’re now well prepared to meet the needs of customers who need our products the most.”
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“We’re thankful to our investors for this support, which helps d.light accelerate development and distribution of our increasingly popular solar home systems and portable solar products,” said Kamal Lath, CFO of d.light. “By enabling us to build on our product offerings, this funding helps us empower people to improve their quality of life.”
d.light manufactures and distributes solar lighting and power products through five distribution hubs in East Africa, West Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and the United States, d.light has a goal of reaching 100 million lives with its products by 2020.
