Hi, climate friends 👋 

I have a new update for you - starting next week we will be moving our Sunday issue to Wednesday and that issue will focus solely on climate investor deep dives.

If you’re a founder, this is a great opportunity to learn how to get funded by different climate investors and what they offer. If you’re an investor and want to highlight your firm in The Climate Scout, reach out!

Today at a glance:

• Introducing Asoba

• Detailing their business model, tech, traction and team

• Why do we need this now?

• What is their target climate impact?

• How you can help them!

-  Angelica 💜

Featured Startup: Asoba

Today’s climate startup feature is Asoba. Asoba’s mission is to power Africa’s industrial sector with clean, 24/7 energy. They help enterprises, commercial farmers, property developers, and municipalities build microgrids with battery storage to ensure 24/7 power. Asoba also provides virtual power plants to optimize the scheduling and dispatch of power within the microgrid.

Asoba Fast Facts

Headquarters

San Rafael, California

Technology

Asoba’s core tech is their virtual power plant software. A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) is a network of decentralized, medium-scale power generating units as well as flexible power consumers and storage systems. The network managed via software-based control system efficiently monitors, coordinates and controls the output of each connected power generating unit.

Business Model

Asoba’s business model is a marketplace for owners of microgrids to sell excess power, and for industrial/commercial enterprises to purchase electricity via long-term or flexible PPAs - Asoba manages the microgrid assets using their Virtual Power Plant technology. Customers pay Asoba software licensing fees for use of the VPP as well as transaction fees for use of their marketplace.

Traction

• Total funding: $220,000

• Joined the Power Africa partners network

• Gener8tor and TechStars (AI program in Chicago)

• Advisors:

  • Gael Mourouga (Battery Optimization PhD)

  • Shanker Mohanan (Solar Deployment across Middle East and Africa)

  • Priscilla and Mutsa Mutembwa (B2B enterprise sales and private equity/asset management)

• Key Customers:

  • Town Council of Bulawayo (Zimbabwe)

  • Apex Developers (Botswana)

  • NITA (Ghana)

Founder

• Shingai Samudzi is the founder of Asoba alongside a strong team of people based in or from Africa (Ghana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa)

• Shingai has a strong background in AI and Machine Learning:

  • Spent time as a data scientist at Google Cloud

  • Spent 2 years developing financial models and deal structure for commercial rooftop solar across the US

Why Now?

Asoba focuses primarily on South Africa, where they have a second office in Cape Town. The country, along with most of Sub Saharan Africa, faces a significant electricity generation capacity shortage due to climate change. This leads to daily blackouts and load shedding. South Africa, especially the Western Cape, is an attractive location for Asoba due to its industrialization and potential for investment. The government is committed to privatizing the electricity market, as the national utility provider, Eskom, has failed catastrophically. However, the government's poor credit rating creates a financing gap. As a result, municipalities, property developers, special economic zones, and high intensity electricity users must finance and manage their own microgrids. Asoba estimates a $3B market opportunity by focusing on large scale industrial entities in South Africa.

Climate Impact

Asoba’s target climate impact is 1 megaton of CO2 emissions averted over the next 5 years.

Support Asoba

Asoba is currently raising a $500K pre seed round on a $3.5M SAFE, of which $220K is committed already. They are also looking to expand their team (slowly) by bringing on either strong subject-matter expert advisors or fractional talent.

Connect with Asoba about:

• Join Asoba as a Co-founder

• Join Asoba as a Software Engineering Manager 

• Investor chats for their Pre-Seed round

Today’s Cool Tools

• #OpenDoorClimate - Find climate professionals that are willing to chat

• Net Zero Insights - Market Intelligence on Climate Tech Startups

• Moonarch - Meet investors for your startup for free

• Remote Climate Jobs - Get remote jobs specific to your expertise delivered to your inbox every Wednesday

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