Kenya: Platform Capital invests in cooking fuel company KOKO Networks
Lagos-based Platform Capital, a growth markets investor, has announced its investment in KOKO Networks, a technology company operating in Kenya and India which enables the large-scale, low-cost distribution of clean household fuel in African cities.
Cooking fuel is a $40 billion market in Africa’s largest cities, but dirty fuels such as charcoal and firewood dominate. Enabling mass-market access to an affordable clean fuel is a major challenge across sub-Saharan Africa, with the existing modern solutions like LPG and electricity too expensive to enable universal access.
KOKO has developed a range of hardware and software innovations that now allow the problem of dirty cooking fuel to be tackled at commercial scale. After years of R&D and a successful pilot, KOKO Fuel was launched in Q4 2019 at scale across Nairobi, delivering sustainable bioethanol cooking fuel in a manner that enables major cost savings and quality-of-life improvements for low-income customers switching from dirty cooking fuels.
The company operates a network of 700 Clean Fuel ATMs inside neighbourhood shops across Nairobi.
Customers buy fuel in small daily quantities via mobile money at ATMs located a short walk from home. The fuel ATMs are refilled by IoT-enabled Smart Micro Tankers operated by Vivo Energy Kenya (the Shell licensee), with whom KOKO partnered in 2018. The KOKO Cloud software platform enables the efficient and safe flow of fuel, payments, data and appliances, with millions of data-points daily sent from the ATM network to KOKO’s network operations centre.
Dr Akintoye Akindele, chairman of Platform Capital, joins KOKO’s advisory board and as a board observer in conjunction with the investment.
Greg Murray, CEO and co-founder of KOKO Networks commented, “KOKO’s mission is to imagine and deliver technology that transforms life in the world’s fastest-growing cities, and KOKO Fuel is now doing exactly that for over 50,000 households in Nairobi. In the years ahead we will be launching networks in many African countries, and we are pleased to welcome Platform Capital and Dr Akindele to the KOKO team in order to help us navigate new markets in West Africa.”
Reach Africa’s private equity community by publishing a Showcase Article, Job Opportunity or Event on Africa Private Equity News. Contact us at editor@africaprivateequitynews.com for our rate card and more information.