Ugandan company gnuGrid has raised US$612,500 in seed funding as it pivots its product offering to scale in the financial market.
Solar Sentra, developed by gnuGrid, a company founded in 2019 by David Opio and James Dailey, aims to simplify and automate the very heterogeneous solar energy sector in Uganda and elsewhere by using artificial intelligence-enhanced sensors to track solar systems and collect energy consumption data, which solar plant operators use to design tailored services.
To make solar business operations more efficient and cost-effective, gnuGrid has combined this technology with digital payments, predictive analytics, consumer profiling, and data tracking, among other things.
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The firm began a campaign this year, according to media reports in February, which later ended up closing at $612,500. The funds come from a group of retail investors and amount to an initial valuation of $6.25 million for gnuGrid.
In 2019, the small company raised 50,000 US dollars to build its technological tool, pilot it, and launch it on the market.
However, its product line has recently changed, with gnuGrid announcing its metamorphosis into a licenced credit reference bureau in order to assist many informal and formal financial institutions in removing the constraints they experience as investors and to provide a prestige shield in favour of customers or borrowers who use credit in the last mile.
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The seed money will be utilised to establish cutting-edge data hosting servers and a customer care centre, hire personnel, build the CRB platform, and develop sales and marketing strategies.
gnuGrid solar fintech gnuGrid solar fintech
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh