Image: Oval Money Blog
Acumen Capital Partners – a subsidiary of the non-profit organization Acumen – announced today the near $70 million close of for-profit fund, KawiSafi Ventures.
KawiSafi plans to address energy poverty and the current climate crisis through delivering clean, affordable energy to 10 million people, while displacing more than one million tons of carbon dioxide in the next 10 years. To date, KawiSafi has invested $21 million, impacted 4.3 million people and averted 360,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
According to Acumen’s founder and CEO, Jacqueline Novogratz, the organization saw an opportunity to drive energy access for millions of low-income people in East Africa and scale the clean energy sector. The addition of approximately $70 million raised by the fund will enable Acumen to help companies deliver clean, affordable renewable energy.
“Acumen’s investing experience has shown us that Africa has a unique opportunity to solve its energy problem. We created KawiSafi to prove that renewable, off-grid energy can be a faster, cheaper and cleaner way to electrify the continent. By building scalable solutions that can bring power to low-income communities that have lived without electricity for too long, we can create a seismic shift in off-grid energy, releasing immense levels of human productivity and minimizing impact on the environment,” said Novogratz.
Founded in 2001, Acumen has invested more than $115 million in 113 companies across Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States.
