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- SunCulture builds a culture of ownership to power growth
- Enza raises to improve digital payments
- Africa’s infrastructure needs show up in the polls
Featured: Ownership Economy
SunCulture turns workers into owners to propel its next stage of growth.Introducing solar-powered irrigation to African farmers was untilled ground, if not outright crazy, when SunCulture launched in 2012. Solar panels were expensive. Most farmers relied on rain, not gadgets. SunCulture’s first model retailed for $5,000 and, without available credit, was out of reach for its largely unbanked demographic. Today, SunCulture’s solar irrigation systems, which start at $500, are used by more than 50,000 farmers. As it raises its Series C equity round, the Nairobi-based company has turned to its workers to power its next phase of growth. SunCulture in August launched an employee-wide share ownership program, giving workers that had been with the company for at least a year a stake in the value and impact of their work. “We are putting our money where our mouth is in terms of what we want to see from our employees,” says SunCulture’s Mikayla Czajkowski. The company expects its more than 500 workers to take ownership of their work, and tells them, “You are owning a piece of SunCulture, and the value that the company is accruing is value that you’re accruing.”
- Culture of ownership.In Africa, SunCulture is among a small number of companies embracing broad-based employee ownership. Its “Raindrops” program expands the company’s existing employee stock ownership plan for senior staff to include sales managers, credit officers, field engineers, cooks and cleaners. It was modeled on the employee ownership strategy developed by pay-as-you-go solar company, Fenix International, which successfully paid out workers when the company was acquired by French utility Engie in 2017, with some workers receiving five-times their annual salary. Laurie Spengler, now with Courageous Capital, who advised Fenix on the deal, recalls workers sharing how they had invested the money in their homes and families. “What struck me most, though, was that nearly everyone also talked about feeling valued as a contributor to the firm,” she says. “That is how impact exits should happen. The terms of a transaction can honor the people who built the enterprise, and they should.”
- Growth values.SunCulture began designing Raindrops when it closed its Series B equity round in 2024, as part of a broader review of the company’s objectives and values. “Five-hundred people are not part of the founding story,” says Czajkowski. “How then do you keep the values that carried us from a small organization, as a much larger organization?” SunCulture has cracked the code for reaching smallholder farmers and is aiming to reach 300,000 unit sales by 2030. More than 90% of its customers use its systems to access groundwater for cooking, cleaning and drinking, in addition to farm irrigation. Growth is directly correlated with SunCulture’s impact, says Czajkowski. Its funders and investors, most of which are catalytic and impact investors, share its growth-for-impact mission; they and the company’s board support the employee ownership initiative as a way to super-charge growth. “Their mandate is to maximize the valuation of the company,” says Czajkowski. “One way to do that is by incentivizing employees so that they will want to maximize value.”
- Keep reading, “SunCulture turns workers into owners to propel its next stage of growth,” by Jessica Pothering.
Dealflow: Digital Banking
💸 Enza secures $6 million to build payments infrastructure for Africa’s financial institutions.The Abu Dhabi-based fintech company raised $6 million in a seed extension round backed by 4DX Ventures,British International Investment, Quona Capital and Algebra Ventures. “Enza provides banks and financial institutions with the modern payments infrastructure that they need to reduce costs, broaden payment options and expand access to affordable and reliable financial services,” BII’s Chirantan Patnaik said. (Enza)
- 🇨🇩 Pathways to growth. Proparco provided $10 million in portfolio guarantees to Ecobank’s Congolese subsidiary. The guarantees will cover a portion of the bank’s lending to micro and small businesses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with a focus on businesses owned by women and young entrepreneurs. Proparco and Ecobank aim to develop up to €100 million ($112.2 million) in risk-sharing and financing for African enterprises. (Proparco)
- 🏦 Inclusive fintech. First Circleand TLcom backed the Kenyan neobank Choice Bank, ImpactAlphahas learned. Choice Bank provides AI-enabled banking services to fintechs and small businesses. It holds a microfinance banking licence from the Central Bank of Kenya. First Circle’s team says that Choice supports “a compelling opportunity to build banking relationships early and grow with customers as their financial needs become larger and more sophisticated.”
- 🧑🏾🌾 Farmer finance. Sahara Impact Ventures and Acumen backed Ghanaian startup Wami Agro. Wami connects smallholder farmers to financing, data insights and buyers. Sahara became the third Ghana-based fund to back Wami, following investments by Mirepa Investment Advisors and Wangara Green Ventures. Sahara’s team said the investment advances its “commitment to sustainable food systems, women’s economic empowerment, and climate resilience.” (Sahara Impact Ventures)
Signals: Situational Awareness
Africa’s crumbling infrastructure presents political perils and investment opportunities.Water taps were dry for residents of Johannesburg, Pretoria and surrounding towns in South Africa’s Gauteng province as voters went to vote in local elections on Sunday. Increasingly frequent water outages, as well as long-standing energy disruptions, contributed to deep losses by the African National Congress, the party of Nelson Mandelathat ushered in and dominated South African democracy for most of the past 32 years. Helen Zille, a controversial politician from one of the ANC’s main challenger parties and the former mayor of Cape Town, framed much of her campaign for mayor of Johannesburg around the water crisis. Unlike in Cape Town, which nearly ran out of water amid a severe drought in 2018, inadequate water supplies in Gauteng are largely the result of poor infrastructure and governance. Community groups in Johannesburg have sued the city over a 65% rate hike on water services, which the city passed this year to try to improve its infrastructure. Johannesburg’s water system loses about 25% of water before it reaches households; other cities have estimated losses of one-third of their supplies.
- Mobilizing capital.Private investors, such as Ninety Oneand Climate Fund Managers, are actively engaged in financing South Africa’s water infrastructure needs. In its National Water Action Plan, released this year, the government reported private sector backing for water projects costing 130 billion rands (nearly $8 billion). There’s a broader push to mobilize private capital for Africa’s infrastructure needs. In Nigeria, UK-based FSD Africa this week inked an agreement with the Pension Industry Leadership Councilfor a $750 million fund to finance energy, transport and digital infrastructure. Nearly 20 Nigerian pension funds have expressed interest. In September, African development finance institution Africa Finance Corp.launched a Nigeria-based vehicle for its Infrastructure Climate-Resilient Fund to raise capital from Nigerian institutional investors. Just 10% of African pension funds’ roughly $600 billion in assets are allocated to alternative investments like infrastructure.
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Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
AVPA’s annual conference is happening today and tomorrow in Cape Town. Next month, SuperReturnreconvenes in Cape Town, Dec. 1-3. Check out dozens of other in-person gatherings on ImpactAlpha’sevents page.
Triple Jumpbrings onInnocent Baluge, previously with Enabling Qapital, as an investment officer… Climate Policy Initiativeis recruiting a program associate for grants and contract administration in Cape Town… Also in Cape Town, CREOis recruiting a nature sector lead… Orbit Venturesis hiring an investment analyst for the Middle East and North Africa, and a program manager in Lagos… Also in Lagos, Acumenseeks a senior associate for its Funding to Build program… Lendableis searching for a risk management associate director in Johannesburg… Tony Blair Institute for Global Changeis hiring an agricultural finance consultant… Conservation Internationalseeks a senior manager for structured nature finance in South Africa.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
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