Infibranches Technologies Limited, a Nigerian startup that provides digital payment services to solar energy providers, on Monday, the 20th September, 2021 revealed that it has secured a $2 million funding from All On, an impact investment company backed by lead oil company, Shell.
Through its flagship products such as OmniBranches and Green Energy Plug – Infibranches has provided an aid for companies with large distribution networks, particularly Solar Home System (SHS) distributors and mini-grid developers, manage their operations in terms of payments.
According to Infibranches CEO, Olusola Owoyemi, OmniBranches has served over a million customers. Its features include agent hierarchy management, commission tracking, transaction records, transaction analytics, and profile management.
Green Energy Plug meanwhile is a single point of integration for payments and other financial services for service providers in the Nigerian renewable energy sector. Through the platform, companies can receive payments for solar and other green energy products.
Infibranches’ single payment integration solution for solar providers helps facilitate payment collection through agent networks across the country while taking energy and financial access to the last mile. The All On investment is meant to aid the company’s mission to bridge the energy distribution gap in underserved rural and peri-urban areas of Nigeria.
As expected, All On’s funding will, “trigger the next phase of Infibranches’ growth” by financing inventory and agent acquisition, product and technology development as well as providing working capital, a joint statement released by both companies said.
“We are particularly thrilled about this deal because it’s an innovative business model that solves the payments and collections problems that solar system distributors and mini-grid developers face across Nigeria,” said Dr. Wiebe Boer, chief executive, All On.
“This partnership merges fintech and renewables in a way we haven’t seen in Nigeria before and will enable tens of thousands of new electricity connections.”
Owoyemi adds that the company will speed up its customer acquisition in current markets, improve existing products like Omnibranches, and introduce new products and services to address energy distribution issues.
In 2018, Shell Foundation, USAID, and UK Aid launched the Nigerian Off-Grid Market Acceleration Programme (NoMAP), a not-for-profit initiative tasked with tackling market barriers limiting the growth of the off-grid sector, where several companies are working to extend access to the millions of Nigerians still without energy.
With the investment, NoMAP will be working with Infibranches to tackle energy distribution challenges, in addition to broader off-grid market challenges in Nigeria.
“The initiative’s work with Infibranches has shown how important it is to continue addressing market barriers, enabling enterprises to more quickly expand their life-changing energy solutions to households and SMEs across Nigeria,” Sam Parker, chief executive of Shell Foundation, said.
