In a bid to harness the power of entrepreneurship to disrupt poverty in Africa, Acumen, a global non-profit organisation, has invested $1.05million in Koolboks, Nigeria’s solar-powered fridge company and Lizard Earth, a producer and aggregator of high-quality organic cocoa beans in Sierra Leone.
The company which invests in early-stage companies with products and services that enables the poor to transform their lives said it injected the funds in the two West African start-ups because of their potential and the impact they are both making in their local communities.
Acumen invested $500,000 in Koolboks as equity in a Seed round of $1.65 million led by Aruwa Capital Management who invested $1million. The other investor in the round was PG Impacts. The capital raised will be used to strengthen its team, build a distribution network in Nigeria, work capital, invest in technology and enhance its products.
The New York-based organisation also invested $550,000 as convertible debt in Lizard Earth’s Seed Round. Acumen’s funding will be complemented by $200,000 of grant funding already committed from Welthungerhilfe and the European Union (ADORE Project). The capital raised will be used to strengthen its team, working capital, expand its sourcing platform to 5,000 smallholder farmers, investment in equipment, and plantation maintenance.
According to Acumen, its interest in Lizard Earth came from the company’s “strong impact potential” and its “ability to provide insights to farmers”.
“Farmer training and replacing ageing trees could be transformative for thousands of farmers and their families ( a potential reach of 40,000 lives), resulting in farmer incomes increasing by 250percent annually (i.e. $315 more), and potentially move 5,000 farmers from earning less than $1.90 a day to close to $3.0 a day,” Acumen said.
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The innovation by Lizard Earth addresses the challenges within the cocoa sector in Sierra Leone by providing essential, year-round farm-level services to smallholder producers, often in collaboration with donor partners.
According to agronomists Acumen spoke to during its due diligence, if farmers adopt the training provided combined with the new seedlings being distributed to replace aged trees smallholder, producers should see a yield increase by 100 percent to 200 percent within the next five years.
Koolboks, on the other hand, was attractive to Acumen because of the unique opportunity that exists in the key sector it operates.
Other reasons while Koolboks caught Acumen’s interest was its transformative impact potential and innovative product.
“Today, Koolboks is the first company to offer a solar-powered freezing appliance to consumers with financing. The lack of direct alternatives to Koolboks’ product establishes the company as a true pioneer and allows the company to gain market share and build a strong brand before other direct alternatives come to market,” Acumen said.
Koolboks combines the natural forces of the sun and water to create eco-friendly, solar refrigeration products for domestic, commercial, and health care use while making these appliances affordable and accessible to all through Pay-as-you-go technology.
The company is also aiming to be one of the leading companies providing solar-powered refrigeration for low-income customers in off-grid and weak grid areas with a strong focus on one of the world’s largest off-grid markets in Nigeria.
Founded by Jacqueline Novogratz in 2001 Acumen has a goal to invest “Patient Capital” to bridge the gap between the efficiency and scale of market-based approaches and the social impact of pure philanthropy.
