💡This renewable energy solution can power millions of businesses in Africa
📌The Draft is a weekly series that brings you the most important technology news across emerging markets, every weekend. Subscribe today. Emerging economies are characterized by competitive opportunities leading to struggles for the populace. With rising unemployment, people become depressed, unmotivated, and tend to resort to activities that proliferate crimes.
Emerging economies are characterized by competitive opportunities leading to struggles for the populace. With rising unemployment, people become depressed, unmotivated, and tend to resort to activities that proliferate crimes.
In Sub-Saharan Africa where there's 7.7% unemployment, women mostly get fewer economic opportunities, and the ones they get are extremely competitive. With lesser access to enterprising opportunities, these women still strive to engage in menial jobs, to feed, cater to family, and eke out a living.
Some of these women are into retail sales such as sachet water, bottled water, packaged drinks, and other small-scale cold room businesses which require refrigeration. But they lack the consistent power supply needed.
These women are among the over 640 million people in Africa who lack access to energy. The results are depleting spending power, dragging economic situation, rising poverty, and reduced prosperity.
To turn the tide around for the energy-marginalized retail businesses in Africa, Koolboks, a Lagos-based clean energy startup is scaling its solar refrigeration solution in the region, to give improved access to SME businesses, and enable them to pay in installments as they use, and even light up their shops or homes with the device.
This renewable energy solution, if widely accessible, has the potential to enable businesses, lift many out of poverty, and solve the energy challenge facing retail enterprises in Africa.
To clean energy 💡
- Juwon
In this week's edition of The Draft, here is our editor's pick of some of the top startup funding news and acquisition deals across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America that you should know about.
- A UAE-based AI and cloud computing company launched a $10 billion investment fund
- An Indian e-commerce aggregator startup turned a unicorn, bringing India's total unicorns to 21 in 2022
- A Chinese SaaS startup with a really quirky name raised $110 million
- An African early-stage startup investment firm closed $15 million for its second fund
- An Israeli-based HR platform secured $150 million
