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.

The Sub-Saharan home solar market is one characterized by overwhelming opportunity. In 2017, The IEA estimated that more than half of the billion people globally without power will be brought online with home systems and mini-grids by 2030.

Naturally sunny, East Africa is a market perfectly primed for home solar, where a home system can easily store enough charge throughout the day to power several additional work or study hours in the evening. The advent and voracious adoption of mobile money has also made East Africa uniquely positioned to become a global hub for home solar. Reliable and secure, mobile money has garnered a high level of trust in the local market, which enables easy pay-as-you-go financing. In Kenya specifically, household income is slightly higher than in neighboring countries and the market is familiar with the product, which has faced no well-documented cultural hurdles to implementation. Plus, the government is friendly to home solar as it’s a tenet of its 2030 electrification plan.

Moreover, the time is right. The industry has seen over $875+m in direct and indirect investments, and 31 joint ventures have been formed to support solar home system development and proliferation. This has pushed the industry to a real precipice, but investment has been concentrated in just a few large players. More investment is needed to really push home solar over the edge, but new financing needs to be reserved for agile, new players, like Pawame who seek disruption and creativity outside the scope of the solar home system model, which has now existed in relative stagnation for nearly ten years.

Though there are a few large solar home system companies, there has been notable stagnation in the last ten years and Wood Mackenzie, in their 2019 report calls these “top heavy leaders” “overvalued” and calls for investment in a range of players. Pawame sees themselves as distinguished from its competitors by a range of factors including their supplier agnostic approach, unique customer-facing strategy and focus, and drive towards financial sustainability. As an agile, new company, Pawame is well-positioned to disrupt the industry by offering more customer value and by leveraging innovative technologies to deliver their solutions.

It’s almost hard to capture just how much opportunity there is in the Sub-Saharan market and how much value is left on the table. Only about 2% of all off-grid households have been reached with home solar systems, and once these communities are connected to the electrical grid, there is a world of further product possibilities that open up. The rural, off-grid communities Pawame serves are often spoken about in terms of extreme need, which is accurate, but Pawame prefers to see extreme opportunity, a chance to create mutual value and to really deliver a win-win solution.

Funds will be used to:

1. Attract and retain top talent. We have a leadership team that combines 50+ years of experience in energy, entrepreneurship, management, and developing markets; and we’re lucky to have had talented contributors to Pawame’s success over time, but we experience high churn because we have not yet been able to offer competitive salaries. This affects the business at all levels, from the field where we experience this problem with our sales agents to the top levels of corporate development management. Pawame is able to offer an extremely attractive work environment and employee satisfaction is very high, but connecting the circle with competitive salary offers would enable us to complete our world-class team.



2. Pilot new and innovative products. Pawame seeks to build a catalogue of add-on products that are useful, desired by our customers, and that create value in their lives. Understanding what these products are and how they affect our customers is absolutely crucial to our success and requires significant research, development and piloting. As supplier agnosticism is a pillar of our model, we strive to continue to find the best, most innovative, and most competitively priced products available. Constant product piloting allows us to take advantage of this supplier-neutral approach. We also want to be at the cutting edge of productive-use solar technologies and plan to pilot a range of products including solar fridges, irrigation pumps, smart phones, and more. Plus, we want to begin piloting disruptive last-mile delivery strategies that could lower costs and increase impacts. We can be very agile in our product offerings--this is one of our key strengths--but it requires capital to try out different products.



3. Further invest in portfolio management and data analytics capabilitiesas a source of competitive advantage. Pawame’s unique approach hinges on its command of customer data, which allows them to confidently offer product and loan financing, which has higher margins and deepens customer relationships. Pawame is constantly improving its data analytics and machine-learning capacities. We have a Manager of Data and Analytics, but we want to distinguish ourselves by investing further in our data analytics capabilities.



4. Launch retail locations. Pawame currently operates via sales agents in the field and has a kiosk presence, but wants to establish further permanent retail locations in the field to build our brand and name recognition in the field.



5. Finance burn rate until achievement of cash flow break-even in 2019. Pawame focuses on lean, cost effective operations and will achieve cash flow break-even in 2019, just three years after its founding. Until then, we do need cash to maintain operations.

Most likely exit would be strategic acquisition by a number of types of companies, including:

1. A direct competitor seeking increased market share, improved economies of scale, know-how related to our internal processes and capabilities, access to our brand and portfolio of loyal customers.


2. An indirect competitor with a complementary product range and/or customer base, such as players addressing the C&I sector or higher-income bracket with larger products.


3. Utility/energy company seeking access to the 70% of sub-Saharan African consumers that they are unable to reach via the grid. (Note: peer company Fenix International was recently acquired by Engie.)


4. Energy- or Africa-focused private equity firm that sees value in strong cash flow and consolidation potential.


5. Financial institution seeking access to our customers and our expertise in lending to low-income consumers.


6. FMCG company seeking access to fast growing rural & peri-urban household market.


7. A SHS hardware manufacturer seeking to integrate down the value chain.
   Distributor of electrical appliances and accessories seeking (a) unfettered access to our distribution network and/or (b) access to our pay-as-you-go platform, via which they can make their products more affordable.