The French impact investor has made an inaugural investment Zimbabwe’s NeedEnergy to support the African smart and clean energy sector.
Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P), the Paris-based pan-African impact investor, has partnered with the Gaia Impact Fund to support NeedEnergy, an energy tech start-up specialising in smart, clean energy solutions.
Founded in 2019, NeedEnergy provides a service that helps people track their energy use, manage electricity networks, and trade energy between small power grids and users using artificial intelligence (AI).
This first Zimbabwean investment by I&P is part of the I&P Digital Energy programme, which aims to support companies offering sustainable and accessible energy solutions in sub-Saharan Africa.
Funded by the European Union and implemented by the French Development Agency, the programme is being deployed by local I&P teams and the Gaia Impact Fund, which is a specialist in impact investment in renewable energy in Africa and Asia.
Gaia – which has a track record of investing in renewable energy projects across Africa and Asia that provide energy to people through solar hybrid mini grids – is backing this latest initiative as a specialist advisor.
Last year, Impact Investor reported on the launch of the Gaia Energy Impact Fund II, by Capital Croissance in partnership with Gaia Impact, which targeted investments in the decentralised and renewable energy value chain.
African energy transition opportunity
This latest partnership between I&P and Gaia Impact Fund comes at a time when sub-Saharan Africa’s renewable energy transition is under way, presenting a huge opportunity for investors if the economics can be made to stack up – an opportunity that could total $193bn (€172.8bn) over the 2023-31 period, as reported by Impact Investor.
Previously in 2022, I&P along with the AFD and Gaia Impact Fund, partnered in a €4m programme which provided seed financing averaging €300,000 per company aiming to provide new energy access to 150,000 people across Africa.
