Pawame aspires to an electrified Africa, where energy is just the beginning. We focus on delivering value to the customer, starting with a high quality solar home system. Then, we work with customers to build credit history, harnessing the power of data to unlock access to a range of life-enhancing products, which can transform communities.
We serve the off-grid Sub-Saharan market, which is a massive, largely untapped source of value. 600 million Africans today do not have access to electricity. Clinics, schools, and local businesses require an electrical connection, yet in many places where Pawame works, connection to the grid remains elusive. People walk far distances for dirty-burning kerosene or to charge their phones, and pay more per unit of energy than consumers in the developed world. Going out to fetch energy can be dangerous, especially for women, and takes time away from value-generating activities, adding a significant opportunity cost to the already high prices. Pawame offers a cheaper, cleaner, safer and more long-lasting product. For the company who can access and serve these communities thoughtfully, there is a huge opportunity, estimated to be worth billions (USD) in Kenya alone.
This is just the beginning. Pawame uses proprietary machine-learning software to work with customers to build credit histories, collecting a body of data to create digital footprints for customers who have never been accessed before. This allows Pawame to confidently, at better rates, offer product and loan financing that unlocks access to a range of previously unimaginable products. We plan to offer add-on products ranging from productive-use solar technologies like solar irrigation systems and solar refrigerators to development-amplifying microloans like school loans. This long-lasting value proposition deepens our customer relationships and increases margins (acquisition costs are lower for add-on products). That’s why we’re excited to expand, but are uniquely focused on the customer-facing aspects of our business model. We see more mutual value in offering a long-term relationship and high quality products, rather than rapidly distributing simple solar lamps.
Pawame is an aspirational company that imagines a future Sub-Saharan Africa, which has leap-frogged old ideas of electrical infrastructure and is connected, ready for exciting economic growth. Our business model is designed to accelerate the achievement of this goal, and puts Pawame at the locus of change on the continent, where there is enormous hope, excitement, and value.
We’re inviting you to join us there, at the center of it all--to see where we can go when we imagine that energy is just the beginning.