Yellow - Afrikan Heroes

Yellow Secures Series B Funding to Power More African Communities

April 4, 2023

Yellow, a company that brings affordable and reliable energy and internet connectivity to Africa, has made an announcement regarding its Series B equity round. Yellow has partnered with Energy Entrepreneurs Growth Fund (EEGF) through Triple Jump B.V., which will enable the company to continue its expansion and provide accessible and affordable clean energy and internet connectivity products to hard-to-reach customers across the continent.

Michael Heyink, Yellow’s founder and chief executive, expressed his enthusiasm for the partnership, saying, “This investment will enable Yellow to accelerate its pursuit of providing accessible and affordable clean energy and internet connectivity products to some of the world’s hardest-to-reach customers.”

Yellow has already catered to over 360,000 customers in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, and Madagascar, with remarkable revenue growth of over 250% compound annual growth rate. Additionally, the company’s solar products have helped reduce over 500,000 metric tonnes of CO2e emissions, and Yellow is now seeing strong traction in smartphone finance.

This investment will allow Yellow to continue providing value for money products by attracting customers committed to investing in assets with long-term improvements for their lives. This move will help in expanding renewable energy access in East and Southern Africa, according to Mark van Doesburgh, deputy head of the direct investments team at Triple Jump.

EEGF provides financing in equity, debt, and mezzanine instruments to achieve tailored solutions to meet the changing needs of growing energy companies. With a fund life of 12 years, it provides a longer investment holding and support period, recognizing the inherent need for such businesses in emerging economies to unlock value creation to their stakeholders.

Yellow’s unique technology-enabled and system-driven approach has already impacted the lives of many in Africa, and this partnership with EEGF marks a significant milestone in Yellow’s journey to expand access to affordable energy and internet connectivity in Africa. The fund has set an ambitious goal of reaching over five million beneficiaries, including more than 240 women-led businesses, to help avoid 4.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, demonstrating EEGF’s commitment to investing in innovative solutions that address critical global challenges.

Yellow Power African Yellow Power African

Nasdaq Issues Second Removal Warning to Egyptian Transport Disruptor SWVL in Just 5 Months

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

Malawi Solar Energy Startup, Yellow, Secures $4m Debt Financing From SunFunder

September 14, 2021

Yellow, a fast-growing off-grid solar provider in Malawi, has landed $4m facility to reach out to underserved populations that are still sleeping in the dark, as well as to expand chances for entrepreneurs whose businesses can produce a ripple effect in terms of employment and wealth creation.

“The mission to electrify millions of households in Africa through the efficient distribution of PAYGO solar home systems is an incredible commercial, social and environmental opportunity. We are thrilled to have a leader in the field like SunFunder endorse Yellow’s business model, and provide the finance to enable our continued expansion.” said Mike Heyink, Yellow’s founder and CEO.

The loan will support the company’s growing sales of solar home systems.

Why The Investor Invested

“When we first met founder Mike Heyink and team a few years ago, they were a startup with barely 100 customers. We tracked their progress from a young company studying lessons learned to a growing company that is establishing best practices for the industry. It is an exciting time to work together and accelerate Yellow’s growth,” SunFunder said in statement.

“Yellow has quickly established itself as a leading off-grid solar operator. We are particularly pleased to be starting this new partnership having stayed in contact since their early days — supporting new players, as a trusted advisor and partner rather than just financier, is built into SunFunder’s own journey helping to establish the off-grid solar sector,” added Collins Kuindwa, Investment Officer at SunFunder.

A Look What Yellow Does

Founded in 2017 by Michael Heyink and Maya Stewart, the startup uses an online platform to sell solar kits for African households.

Yellow has enhanced energy availability for over 400,000 people while also reducing CO2 emissions by 12,000 tons per year by replacing kerosene with clean solar illumination and other devices. In addition, the company has created approximately 800 jobs in the area.

There are still 570 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa who do not have access to power, and meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG7) of universal energy access by 2030 will necessitate scaling up highly effective firms.

Yellow solar Malawi Yellow solar Malawi

Africa-focused Investor, SunFunder, Raises $70m To Invest In Off-grid Startups

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer

Barely A Year After Its Last Funding, South African Startup Yellow Raises $3.3 million In New Round

September 8, 2020

Michael Stannard, chief operating officer (COO) of Platform Investment Partners

Yellow, the three-year-old South Africa and Malawi-based pay-as-you-go off-grid tech startup, has secured another $3.3-million in a Series A Equity Financing Round to expand its services and customer base, barely a yearly after it raised $725k in a funding round.

“We have many aims, but underpinning all that we do is to “LIVE BETTER”. As a team, we are brought together, by the way, our desire to create long term solutions for the real problems our customers face,” the startup noted in a statement.

Here Is What You Need To Know

The investment which came from Platform Investment Partners (PIP), also saw Ruby Rock Investment and LBO participating.
With the funding, the startup has been able to supply its pay-as-you-go solar-power devices to over 100 000 customers in Malawi and Uganda.
The startup also intends to use the funding to rapidly scale up.
In 2019, the startup raised $725 000 in investment, with a €2-million debt facility earlier raised from mostly Swedish members of the public on crowdfunding platform Trine.
In May, it also secured a $1-million grant from USAID after coming out tops in its Malawi Kickstarter Programme. The USAID grant will be paid out as the business meets certain milestones in devices issued.

Why The Investors Invested

“Platform Growth seeks to invest in businesses that combine strong management teams with unique technology. In Yellow, we feel we have found this combination and have been hugely impressed by the deployment of Yellow’s Ofeefee software to solve complex problems in Malawi and Uganda. We are proud to provide capital alongside our investment partners, Ruby Rock, to grow Yellow into one of Africa’s leading digital retailers,” Michael Stannard, COO Platform Investment Partners (PIP) said.

Richard Came of PIP; the South African Telco & Fibre entrepreneur, Ben Kruger; and Neil Surgey of Ruby Rock, former senior executives of Standard Bank, are three of the key principals behind the funding round. PIP and Ruby Rock joined LBOS, Yellow ’s seed funders, who have reinvested in the startup ‘s latest round.

A Look At What The Startup Does

Founded in 2017, by Michael Heyink and Maya Stewart, Yellow is a tech startup which utilises an online platform to sell pay-as-you-go solar-power devices to African households.

Yellow co-founder Michael Heyink saw the opportunity to start a business providing pay-as-you-go solar power to African households while working at a Johannesburg based private equity firm Metier, which finances a number of energy deals on the continent.

After leaving the private equity firm he set off to Zimbabwe and Malawi (where he met fellow co-founder Maya Khonje-Stewart). But in the beginning things didn’t go as planned.

“We learnt the hard lessons of trying to operate a business in Africa. We sat for hours under trees with chiefs and drove through hundreds of places that aren’t on the maps,” he said.

Recruiting agents to sell the devices soon proved a slow and expensive process. “We’d ask who wanted to be an agent and 500 people would put up their hand,” he said.

‘Web platform changed everything’

Back in Cape Town, and partly as a way to try to run the business remotely, Heyink began building a web platform, dubbed Ofeefee.

“The platform changed everything. The business developed huge traction,” he said.

“We substituted meetings under trees for automated recruitment workflows and soon the business was thriving and attracting heavyweight investors and funders,” he added.

Today, the startup claims to have enabled 30 000 low income and rural households access to electricity via solar home systems on a financed basis. Yellow’s business model is low cost with reportedly bad debts of customers at less than 2%.

The team has also grown. Heyink and Khonje-Stewart were joined by Ross Thompson, a former Rand Merchant Bank financier in 2018, while Ben Walwyn, a former actuary from Discovery Bank joined earlier last year. Both Thompson and Walwyn can also code.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer

South African Off-grid Energy Startup Yellow Raises $725k For Expansion To Uganda, Malawi

November 26, 2019

South African off-grid energy startup Yellow has raised $725 000 from local and international investors to be able to bring renewable energy to Ugandan and Malawi homes and businesses. However, Yellow, which sells pay-as-you-go solar-power devices to African households, almost shut its doors until a tech platform the founders designed helped save the business.

“We gained almost no traction at all and after a year of leaving our jobs came close to shutting the business down,” co-founder Michael Heyink said, following the conclusion of the round which involved a local private equity company and a syndicate of local and US angel investors.

Image result for Of-grid energy Africa startups — Source: Young Diplomats

Here Is The Deal

This round of funding saw a South African private equity firm and angel investors from South Africa and New York, who both declined to be named, investing in the two-year-old company.
Although the deal was signed in May, proper paperwork only concluded earlier this month.
This follows a €2-million loan the startup raised from Swedish crowdfunding platform Trine and a $1-million grant from USAID, both of which were concluded earlier this year.
To be eligible for the full $1-million, the startup must sell 67 000 devices. So far, since July when the grant kicked in, the startup has sold 4000 devices.

A Look At The Startup Yellow

Yellow co-founder Michael Heyinksaw the opportunity to start a business providing pay-as-you-go solar power to African households while working at a Johannesburg based private equity firm Metier, which finances a number of energy deals on the continent.

After leaving the private equity firm he set off to Zimbabwe and Malawi (where he met fellow co-founder Maya Khonje-Stewart). But in the beginning things didn’t go as planned.

“We learnt the hard lessons of trying to operate a business in Africa. We sat for hours under trees with chiefs and drove through hundreds of places that aren’t on the maps,” he recalls.

Recruiting agents to sell the devices soon proved a slow and expensive process. “We’d ask who wanted to be an agent and 500 people would put up their hand,” he says.

‘Web platform changed everything’

Back in Cape Town, and partly as a way to try run the business remotely, Heyink began building a web platform, dubbed Ofeefee.

“The platform changed everything. The business developed huge traction.

“We substituted meetings under trees for automated recruitment workflows and soon the business was thriving and attracting heavyweight investors and funders,” he says.

So far the startup has installed 7500 such devices in Malawi (against a serviceable market that he estimates to be two million) and aims to begin operating in Uganda (which he reckons has a serviceable market of about seven million customers) by January next year.

The team has also grown. Heyink and Khonje-Stewart were joined by Ross Thompson, a former Rand Merchant Bank financier last year, while Ben Walwyn, a former actuary from Discovery Bank joined earlier this year. Both Thompson and Walwyn can also code.

While the devices only allow users to power lights, recharge smartphones and power a radio, Heyink says startup Yellow will on Thursday ship the first 150 of its expansion packs, from Tanzania. These will allow users to power televisions sets, by plugging into the initial Yellow devices they’ve purchased.

First entitled to these expansions packs will be customers who are regularly honouring repayments.

The devices cost $150 and a customer has 24 months to pay it off in. Repayments are charged at 2.5% to 3% a month, which Heyink points out is less than the 5% to 6% a month charged by micro financiers on the continent.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world