The Altech Group has raised US$18 million in loan money and grants to strengthen its market position and extend access to energy throughout the DRC.
Altech has grown its sales and distribution network to encompass more than 140 stores in 22 of the DRC’s 26 provinces thanks to the efforts of its 4,500 employees and sales agents since its founding in 2013. It has enhanced the lives of over 1.7 million Congolese people by selling over 350,000 solar energy gadgets.
With the recently announced US$18 million in growth funding, Altech will be able to provide 180,000 solar products to 900,000 people in need of access to clean, reliable electricity.
The Energy Entrepreneurs Growth Fund (EEGF), Triple Jump, and Rabobank provided the majority of the debt capital, each through their own dedicated facilities. SIMA Funds, Solidarité Internationale pour le Développement et l’Investissement, Kiva, the Whole Planet Foundation, and EquityBCDC have all made contributions to Altech. ANSER RDC and the Humanitarian Grand Challenge, Creating Hope in Conflict provided this money.
According to Altech co-founder Washikala Malango, “since our humble beginning in 2013 in our off-grid city of Baraka in South-Kivu province in the Eastern part of the DRC, we have faced the severe challenge of obtaining working capital financing in our efforts to connect off-grid households in the rural, peri-urban, and urban areas of our country.”
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More On The Expansion
As stated on the Altech website, “the incredible support from Rabobank and EEGF, as well as our other lenders, is one of the main pillars for Altech to provide affordable clean energy to thousands of Congolese off-grid households to modern, clean, reliable, and affordable solar solutions while creating thousands of green jobs for Congolese youth.”
According to Triple Jump’s Deputy Head, Direct Investments team member Mark van Doesburgh, the company is “excited” to support Altech’s expansion as it increases access to sustainable energy in the DRC.
We believe Altech will continue to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives, therefore this investment is in line with our goal of funding novel approaches to pressing global problems. The poorest people in the globe have been impacted the hardest by recent market shocks like COVID-19 and the rise in food and energy costs. One way to better people’s lives is to make clean, inexpensive energy available to them, he said.
About Altech
In the fields of industrial control, instrumentation, medical technology, and automation, Altech Corporation is a well-established provider in the United States of America for components and devices. Busbars and power distribution are two of the many goods that are offered by Altech, which offers a very comprehensive range of products. Protective measures for electrical circuits.