ElectriFI deploys catalytic capital across the distributed energy landscape, taking risk where commercial finance is scarce to expand access and unlock investment in fragile and underserved markets. The 2025 report highlights how this works in practice, by, among others, expanding energy access for households and SMEs, delivering productive use solutions to farmers or by investing in gender-lens initiatives deepening climate finance impact.
This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of EDFI MC and do not reflect the views of the European Union.
10 New Commitments
86 Individual Investments Across 60 Investee Companies
Assets Under Management
Leverage Factor
“ElectriFI’s 2025 portfolio gives concrete meaning to our idea of strategic depth through diversity. Our commitments span clean cooking, solar home systems, mini-grids, agri-energy, e-mobility and gender-lens capital, reaching different segments of the energy market and unlocking multiple channels of impact at once: access for households, higher productivity for firms and greater economic opportunities for women.
Through EDFI MC’s blending, these investments also pave the way for European DFIs to come in after us, sharing risks, scaling what works and anchoring long term capital in frontier markets. While the Global Facility is now fully allocated, we continue to deploy capital through our Country Windows and to design new mandates, taking risk where it matters most so that European blended finance can help deliver clean, reliable energy in some of the world’s most challenging markets.”
Rodrigo Madrazo García de Lomana
CEO, EDFI Management Company
ElectriFI’s 2025 results reflect a year of diversification and the full allocation of the Global Facility. Ten new commitments totalling €23.5 million were signed across the Global Facility and four Country Windows, with roughly one quarter of the volume in follow-on investments and the rest in new transactions, balancing continuity with support to early-stage companies.
The full allocation of the Global Facility is a key milestone, signalling the transition from portfolio build-up to a phase focused on consolidation, impact and exits, and confirming the effectiveness of EU blended finance in frontier energy markets.
The 2025 portfolio can be viewed through three groups of investments that show how diverse business models can work together to relieve the energy constraint that limits inclusive growth:
ElectriFI is an EU-funded investment facility managed by EDFI Management Company that uses blended finance to catalyse private investment in clean energy in developing and emerging economies. It sits within the broader Global Gateway and EU external investment architecture, working alongside European Development Finance Institutions and other partners to provide risk-tolerant, patient capital where commercial finance is scarce.
Through its Global Facility and dedicated Country Windows, ElectriFI focuses on early-stage and high-impact business models that expand access to modern, sustainable energy.
The facility operates in a context where the global energy access gap remains stark, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Hundreds of millions of people still lack reliable electricity, and many more face high costs and poor quality of service.
Evidence shows a strong, long-run link between energy use and economic development: no country has reached high income levels with very low energy consumption, and companies facing unreliable or expensive power see lower productivity, constrained growth and fewer jobs.
In that sense, energy is not just another sector, but a prerequisite for broad-based development, competitiveness and resilience.
Within this context, ElectriFI continues to prioritise fragile and underserved markets where the energy constraint is most binding and where private capital is least available.
The facility backs companies and projects that bring clean cooking solutions, off-grid solar, mini-grids, productive-use technologies and gender-lens finance to communities and enterprises often overlooked by mainstream investors.
By doing so, ElectriFI aims to demonstrate viable business models, crowd in additional finance, and contribute to a just and inclusive energy transition in partner countries.
for households and communities through minigrids and off-grid solar solutions and clean cooking.
West African off-grid company selling, installing and maintaining solar PV solutions in Benin and neighbouring countries; ElectriFI’s follow-on supports additional the company’s product and market expansion.
Business model: Off-grid solar solutions (solar home systems, C&I, mini-grids and productive use equipment).
Provides biomass-pellet, IoT-enabled clean cookstoves in Zambia, replacing charcoal and reducing emissions while improving household health and women’s time use.
Business model: Clean cooking solutions
Africa’s leading clean cookstove manufacturer; ElectriFI’s financing supports deployment of efficient and electric cookstoves in Kenya, enabling over 100,000 households to shift to clean, affordable cooking and avoiding significant CO₂ emissions.
Business model: Clean and electric cooking solutions at scale
Pay-as-you-go solar home systems reaching low-income households; the 2025 follow-on supports expansion of the model into Zambia after initial success in Kenya.
Business model: Solar home systems
through solar solutions for the commercial and industrial sector (“C&I”) and grid-connected renewable energy plants (solar, hydro, wind IPPs)
Manufactures, installs and finances biodigesters for small and medium-scale farmers, turning waste into biogas for cooking, heating and electricity and producing organic fertiliser; the 2025 round deepens ElectriFI’s earlier strategic investment to back international scale-up.
Business model: Biogas solutions for smallholder farmers
Produces electric motorcycles and operates a battery-swapping network in Uganda, lowering operating costs for boda boda riders and small businesses.
Business model: E-mobility and battery-swapping solutions
32 MWp grid-connected solar plant in Western Zambia, selling power via a market-based PPA into the Southern African Power Pool, strengthening regional clean energy supply.
Business model: Grid-connected solar IPP
Provides solar-powered irrigation systems in Southeast Asia using a pay-after-harvest model that aligns repayments with farmers’ cash flows, replacing diesel pumps and improving resilience of smallholder farming.
Business model: Solar irrigation for productive use
Develops and operates solar and battery systems for businesses in Uganda and Rwanda, helping firms displace diesel generators, cut energy costs and improve reliability.
Business model: Commercial and industrial solar with storage
via gender-lens finance.
A female-founded fund investing in women-owned, women-led and women-focused SMEs in Nigeria and Ghana, including businesses in clean energy and climate-relevant sectors.
Business model: Gender-lens private equity fund
The 2025 portfolio split is roughly 23% follow-on commitments (€5.3 million, 4 deals) and 77% new commitments (€18.1 million, 6 deals). This balance signals confidence in companies that have demonstrated both impact and commercial traction, while also expanding into new geographies, technologies and partners.
Follow-on investments were concentrated in the Global Facility, reflecting its transition from deployment to portfolio consolidation and preparing for exits.
The 2025 commitments show a portfolio that is broadening and deepening. The full allocation of the Global Facility closes its deployment phase, while the Country Windows continue to build exposure in priority markets.
Six new investments add diversity in geography and business models, from clean cooking and mini-grids to agri-energy, productive use and gender-lens capital. Four follow-on investments signal confidence in proven companies and management teams and help them reach larger scale.
Across all 10 deals, ElectriFI remains positioned in high-risk, high-impact segments where commercial finance is limited, using EU blended resources to demonstrate viability and crowd in other investors.
ECS Supamoto is scaling a clean cooking model in Zambia built around IoT-enabled biomass stoves and pellet fuel, helping households shift away from charcoal while reducing emissions and health risks.
Solar Panda provides pay-as-you-go solar home systems (SHS) to rural households in Zambia and is capitalising on its earlier success in Kenya.
BURN Manufacturing supports the roll out of efficient electric cooking solutions to more than 100,000 Kenyan households.
MyJouleBox also a follow-on investment, deepens ElectriFI’s partnership with a decentralised solar provider in Benin and neighbouring countries, adding thousands of new household connections.
Together, these household energy access investments show how a mix of clean cooking and off-grid solar solutions, paired with different financing instruments, can deliver cleaner, safer and more reliable energy to underserved communities.
When capital is deployed into energy projects that raise productivity, support jobs, strengthen enterprises and unlock larger market opportunities, the effects are felt well beyond individual assets. This part of the portfolio illustrates how targeted investments can ease key energy bottlenecks for farmers, businesses and power systems, with benefits that ripple through local economies.
Sistema.bio and Agros illustrate how energy supports productivity in agriculture and rural value chains. Sistema.bio, a follow-on investment, equips small and medium-scale farmers with biodigesters that convert agricultural and animal waste into biogas for cooking and thermal use, while also producing organic fertiliser that can improve yields and lower input costs. Agros, a new investment, expands access to solar-powered irrigation and other productive-use equipment for farmers and agri-enterprises in Southeast Asia, using financing structures designed to align repayments with agricultural cash flows.
Bodawerk and Sawa Energy extend this productivity lens to enterprises and service delivery. Bodawerk, follow on investment, complements this with e-mobility and logistics. By producing batteries and electric motorcycles and operating a battery swapping network in Uganda, the company lowers operating costs for boda boda riders and other small businesses, reduces dependence on imported fuel and creates skilled jobs in local manufacturing and services. Sawa Energy provides solar generation and storage systems for commercial and industrial customers in Uganda and Rwanda, reducing diesel use, improving reliability and lowering electricity costs for businesses and community institutions.
Ilute Solar adds a larger-scale dimension by supporting the expansion of power supply itself. Developed by Serengeti Energy and partners, the 32 MWp grid-connected solar plant in Zambia sells electricity through a market-based structure linked to GreenCo and the Southern African Power Pool, reinforcing the grid, enabling regional power trade and improving the wider environment for productive investment.
Taken together, these investments show how well-structured energy finance can support economic activity at multiple levels: improving farm productivity, lowering business costs, enabling cleaner mobility and expanding the reliable power supply that enterprises and markets need to grow.
ElectriFI supports gender-smart and local capital vehicles that can deepen impact and strengthen domestic investment ecosystems. The main example in 2025 is Aruwa Capital Fund II, a female-founded, gender-lens private equity fund investing in women owned, women led and women focused SMEs in Nigeria and Ghana. Through Aruwa, ElectriFI supports not only individual portfolio companies, including in energy and climate relevant sectors, but also the development of local fund management capacity and more inclusive capital markets.
This focus connects closely with gender and inclusion effects across the wider ElectriFI portfolio. Clean cooking investments reduce unpaid care work and health risks that disproportionately affect women, while creating income opportunities for women in sales and distribution. Productive-use and agri-energy investments open space for women as farmers, entrepreneurs and employees in growing value chains, particularly where energy access and equipment finance support new types of activity.
Taken together, these elements show how ElectriFI works to ensure that women participate as decision makers, business owners and users in the clean energy transition, and how local investment funds can amplify that effect.
“ElectriFI has been an important blended finance vehicle for EDFIs since its launch, especially in markets where it is still challenging to reach bankable scale. By taking early, well structured risk in distributed energy and other innovative models, ElectriFI helps us build future pipeline, test new approaches and pave the way for larger commitments from European development finance institutions.”
Robert Voskulien
Manager Renewable Energy Africa at FMO, ElectriFI’s Investment Committee chair
ElectriFI facilities are implemented by EDFI Management Company on behalf of FMO.
The portfolio mix confirms ElectriFI’s positioning as a high risk, catalytic investor.
Equity and quasi equity together account for 49.8% of total commitments, allowing the facility to take early-stage risk and align with investees’ long-term growth.
From a sector perspective, mini grid companies account for 25.5% of ElectriFI’s committed capital, making this the single largest exposure. Solar home system businesses represent a further 23.9%, reflecting the importance of off grid and pay as you go solutions in the portfolio. The “Other” category brings together a range of distributed renewable energy and innovative models, including MyJouleBox (SHS, C&I and mini grids), SunCulture (solar water pumps), Sistema.bio (biodigesters), Bodawerk (e mobility) and ECS Supamoto (clean cooking).
This mix illustrates how ElectriFI backs both core access models (mini grids and SHS) and emerging solutions that expand the frontier of what clean energy can do for households, farms and enterprises.
Geographically, Sub Saharan Africa represents 78.4% of total commitments, in line with the programme’s focus on markets where energy access gaps and financing constraints are most acute.
“Managing ElectriFI’s portfolio means staying close to our partners as their realities change. In 2025, that meant agreeing constructive restructurings in some cases and closing out successful investments in others, always with a view to preserving value, supporting companies through transition and recycling capital into new clean energy opportunities.”
William Barrault
Portfolio manager EDFI MC
ElectriFI’s investees realised impact by the end of 2025 stands at:
Methodology: The Realised Impact tracks the annual progress of these impact indicators and is based on an annual monitoring, which occurs in January 2026 for data from the previous twelve months. It includes exited investments when applicable. These results are non-attributed apart from fund investment in ACPF.
As of end 2025, companies in ElectriFI’s portfolio support around 21,600 jobs in full-time equivalent in operations. Almost 40% of these jobs are held by women. Since ElectriFI invested in these companies, around 11,700 jobs in operations have been created and 4,800 jobs in construction have been supported.
In line with EDFI Resolution on Advancing Gender Smart Investing, since 2020 EDFI MC adopted the 2X Challenge framework as part of the wider commitment to pursue gender equality and women’s economic empowerment as essential drivers of impact.
This commitment is translated into an integration of Gender Lens Investing in ElectriFI’s investment cycle. Each transaction is screened and monitored against the 2x Criteria. As of end 2025, 54% of ElectriFI’s active investees were 2x Aligned. Gender representation is particularly prominent in Leadhsip positions (board and senior management) and in Products & Services, especially for companies offering solar home systems and cookstoves to their women clients. One-fourth of these active investees have been co-founded by a woman.
A central objective remains to relieve the energy constraint that limits productivity and jobs, especially in fragile and underserved markets. Reliable and affordable energy is a prerequisite for local companies to expand and hire, and for households and communities to access essential services. ElectriFI’s work contributes to this agenda from a different angle: expanding energy access for households and communities, powering farms, enterprises and markets through productive-use energy solutions, and advancing women’s economic empowerment and local capital ecosystems through gender-smart and local capital vehicles.
“As a team, we see every ElectriFI transaction as part of a wider story about the energy transition in challenging markets. From clean cooking and solar home system companies at the last mile to mini-grid, agri-energy innovators, e-mobility providers, and gender-lens fund managers, our work covers a broad spectrum.
Each investment is a careful balancing act between risk, impact and the needs of our counterparts, but taken together they show how targeted capital can expand access, support productive use of energy and deepen local capital markets.”
Quentin De Hoe
ElectriFI Fund Manager
Follow-on investments in successful companies are a concrete sign of de-risking and help crowd in additional DFIs and private capital. Overall, ElectriFI has leveraged €614.3 million of additional investment, corresponding to a global leverage factor of 4.6x.
Around €213 million (35%) of this comes from the DFIs, underlining ElectriFI’s role in crowding in public development finance alongside private investors and amplifying its development impact.
ElectriFI enters 2026–2027 with a portfolio that is increasingly aligned with the energy and jobs priorities of the partner country, as well as with Team Europe initiatives on sustainable growth and the just energy transition.
The 2025 investments support national objectives on access to affordable, reliable and clean energy, rural electrification, productive agriculture and women’s economic empowerment, and many are embedded in the broader Team Europe or EU Global Gateway engagements at country level.
With the Global Facility now fully allocated, the next phase will focus less on new volume and more on consolidation, impact and exits. This includes supporting existing investees to reach commercial scale, strengthening their governance and ESG performance, helping them mobilise follow-on capital, and selectively preparing exit pathways where ElectriFI’s early-stage role has been fulfilled. In parallel, the Country Windows will continue to deepen ElectriFI’s footprint in fragile and underserved markets, working closely with EU Delegations, European DFIs and local partners.
Looking ahead, several themes are expected to remain central. Productive use of energy – particularly at the agriculture–energy nexus and in MSMEs – will be a priority, given its direct link to jobs and income. Gender-lens and local capital will continue to be strengthened through vehicles like Aruwa and through gender-smart approaches in operating companies.
Finally, ElectriFI is likely to pursue more integrated country approaches, building on the Zambia example, where clean cooking, SHS, IPP and productive-use solutions are deployed in a complementary way within the same market. Together, these directions aim to ensure that ElectriFI’s diverse portfolio continues to deliver high additionality and supports partner countries in achieving their energy and employment goals.
