Finance platform Lendable has secured US $550,000 (Kshs 56.65 million) debt financing for Raj Ushanga House (RUH), the Kenyan distributor for Azuri Technologies, a provider of pay-as-you-go (PayGo) solar energy solutions.
Using an innovative, data driven, “receivables financing” solution, capital is secured by future customer revenues from a high-quality portfolio of over 7,000 RUH PayGo solar customer contracts, and is the first such financing by Lendable for a PayGo energy company.
Raju Haria, CEO of Raj Ushanga House said: “The debt financing from Lendable marks an exciting chapter for RUH. It enables us to reach more customers and finance their ownership of these assets. We will also be able to significantly expand the availability and variety of Azuri solar home systems in Kenya.”
Lendable has a technology platform which uses a proprietary risk engine to analyse the quality of diversified receivable portfolios, and enables alternative lenders to secure debt financing from experienced offshore investors purely against these portfolio cashflows. A portion of the alternative lenders’ loan book is used as security, meaning there is no need to put up other collateral that is required by traditional lenders in the form of tangible fixed assets. This approach to finance enables new energy providers to scale without the need for traditional on-balance-sheet collateral, while also permitting individual projects to be financed separately.
Daniel Goldfarb, CEO and co-founder of Lendable commented: “We are excited to provide the investors on our platform with commercial returns while supporting positive economic and social change. We’re proud to support RUH’s mission to bring affordable and high quality solar energy solutions to more homes across Kenya. This is just the start of what we intend to be a long relationship with the RUH Team as we help them scale their lending exponentially through finance and technology.”
Lendable’s technology platform connects directly to the management information systems of the PayGo provider, including real-time financial information on the customer portfolio. This information allows Lendable to monitor performance of current transactions directly and, through Lendable’s investor portal, provide investors with up-to-date information on the performance of their investments.
Simon Bransfield-Garth, CEO of Azuri Technologies added: “We are delighted to be associated with Lendable’s first structured debt financing deal in renewable energy. Structured debt financing enables our distributors to accelerate the scale-up of PAYGO solar without tying up their balance sheets and we are excited about the potential of this alternative means of finance.”
Raj Ushanga House, established in 1980, became a distributor of solar products in 2013 and in the following year, partnered with Azuri Technologies to begin importing, distributing and financing Azuri solar home systems in Kenya. The organisation is also expanding ts product offering from smaller solar-home-systems to include a PayGo TV with bundled satellite content subscription, also from Azuri.
Azuri Technologies is a commercial provider of PayGo solar home systems to rural off- grid communities, by leveraging solar and mobile technology to allow users in 12 different countries to access renewable, distributed power on a pay-as-you-go basis. Headquarted in Cambridge, UK, the firm has staff based in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania.
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