Shell-funded impact investment company, All On, has announced a $2million investment in a fintech company, Infibranches Technologies Limited, to help bridge the energy distribution gap in underserved rural and peri-urban areas of Nigeria.
The All On investment is expected to trigger the next phase of Infibranches’ growth by financing inventory and agent acquisition, product and technology development, and provide working capital for business operations towards the company’s distribution of Solar Home Systems for households and commercial users across Nigeria with a special focus in the Niger Delta.
Commenting, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr. Wiebe Boer, said: “We are particularly thrilled about this deal because it’s an innovative business model that solves the payments and collections problems that Solar Home System (SHS) distributors and minigrid developers face across Nigeria.”
He added that “This partnership merges fintech and renewables in a way we haven’t seen in Nigeria before and will enable tens of thousands of new electricity connections.”
On his part, CEO, Infibranches, Olusola Owoyemi, expressed excitement about the potential of this deal to fill the gap by connecting consumers and service providers seamlessly, illustrating the interconnected nature of financial inclusion and poverty reduction.
He added that Infibranches plans to speed up customer acquisition in its current markets and introduce new products and services to address energy distribution issues.
“Through this investment, Infibranches plans to speed up customer acquisition in its current markets. This will also improve existing products like Omnibranches, which has served over a million customers, and introduce new products and services to address energy distribution issues,” Owoyemi said.
This deal is an innovative business model that solves the payments and collections problems that Solar Home System (SHS) distributors and minigrid developers face across Nigeria.
Infibranches is currently the only company in the fintech space that has built a secure platform that serves as a single point of integration for payments and other financial services for service providers in the Nigerian renewable energy sector.
The platform also supports agent banking businesses, enabling them to provide services such as cash payments and withdrawals, money transfers, utility and telco payments to name a few.
The deal is being executed under the Nigerian Off-Grid Market Acceleration Programme (NoMAP), a non-profit independent market accelerator tasked with tackling inadequately addressed market barriers limiting the growth of the off-grid sector in Nigeria.
NoMAP is funded USAID’s Scaling Off-grid Energy (SOGE), UK charity, the Shell Foundation and UK aid, and supported Infibranches to develop a single payment integration solution for the Nigerian SHS sector that helps facilitate payment collection through a network of agents across Nigeria, including banks and mobile money agents across the payment value chain.
Shell Foundation CEO, Sam Parker, said: “The initiative’s work with Infibranches has shown how important it is to continue addressing market barriers, enabling enterprises to more quickly expand their life changing energy solutions to households and SMEs across Nigeria.”
Solar is one of the most efficient forms of renewable energy, which produces between 90 and 99% less greenhouse gases (GHGs) compared and causes 70 to 90% less pollution thereby boosting environmental sustainability.
