CrossBoundary duo are our funding champions

From the newsletter

Matthew Tilleard and Jake Cusack, the co-founders and managing partners of CrossBoundary Group, are our March funding heroes. For two consecutive months, they have raised $85 million in total debt funding. At a country level, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa stands tall, having secured a $5 billion loan from the European Union.

• Matthew Tilleard (pictured on the left)  is from Australia and holds an MBA from Stanford University. Before co-founding The CrossBoundary Group, Matthew led the design of financing facilities in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone and helped set up an innovation unit for the UN Secretary-General.

• Several governments also raised money mainly from multilateral lending institutions, and some, like Ghana, provided budget allocations for the energy sector.

More details

• CrossBoundary has demonstrated consistency in fundraising. In December, they raised $140 million in debt funding from the Standard Bank of South Africa. This funding will support its expansion to target more commercial and industrial (C&I) customers with solar, wind, and battery storage solutions.

• Sturdee Energy, a renewable energy developer led by CEO James White, came second in the list of companies that raised the most funding, having secured $22 million in equity investment. This equity injection will serve as growth capital, enabling Sturdee to increase its operational solar PV capacity from 11 MW to 250 MW by 2027. James White holds a Bachelor of Law and Financial Management from the University of Pretoria in South Africa and has 14 years of experience in the sector.

• Greg Murray, the CEO and co-founder of KOKO Networks, secured $10 million in debt funding. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales, Australia, and has over 25 years of experience. He served at various senior levels before founding KOKO Networks in 2013. KOKO designs and sells cookstoves and bio-ethanol cooking fuel, made from sugar molasses, to more than 1.3 million households through over 3,000 “fuel ATMs” in Kenya and Rwanda.

• Leroy Nyangani, the co-founder of NeedEnergy, an energy-tech start-up, raised $1.1 million. He is a graduate of mechanical engineering from the National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe, and is one of the youngest co-founders, having founded the company while still in college. Nyangani wants to utilise Big Data Analytics, Machine Learning and AI in designing an energy solution tailor-made for customers.

Our take

• Funding for renewable energy is increasingly being driven at the government level, as they become more aware of the economic costs associated with fossil fuels. With governments taking the lead, it's expected they will establish supportive environments that will, in turn, attract private sector investment.

• The funding ticket size tends to be larger for established companies compared to newer start-ups. However, the integration of innovative technologies like AI into energy systems presents a compelling opportunity for newer ventures to attract investment.

• African youths are innovating more, especially in the energy and tech space. This can be a motivating factor for other young people seeking role models.