MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Swedfund to Loan $12m to SunFunder Solar Energy Transformation (SET) Fund

Swedfund, the Swedish government’s development finance institution, recently pledged an investment of USD 12 million to the Solar Energy Transformation (SET) Fund, which was launched by SunFunder, a Kenya-based financier of solar energy firms in developing countries. SET is a nine-year, USD 70 million debt fund that aims to increase access to electricity via solar energy projects, mainly in Africa. Swedfund’s CEO Maria Håkansson expressed her support of the move “to provide capital to a fund with an outspoken strategy to invest their way through the COVID-19 pandemic at a point in time where the general interest for investments in developing countries is expected to decrease.”

SunFunder CEO Ryan Levinson argues that “to solve energy access and climate change we need to match institutional investments at scale with clean energy projects around the world – which is what our blended funds achieve.”

Founded in 2012, SunFunder has offices in the UK and the US in addition to Kenya. The firm has extended approximately USD 152 million in debt financing as of 2019, including via its Solar Empowerment Fund, which had a volume of USD 15 million and matured in 2016, and the Beyond the Grid Solar Fund, which had a volume of USD 47 million and matured in 2017. SunFunder also managed the Kenya Off-Grid Solar Access Project, which had a volume of USD 30 million and matured in 2019.

Founded in 1979, Swedfund’s goal “is to fight poverty by investing in sustainable businesses” in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. As of 2019, it has SEK 7.2 billion (USD 817 million) in total assets and 64 contracts deployed in 17 countries, totaling SEK 5.6 billion (USD 627 million).

By Romil Pandey, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

SunFunder press release
https://www.sunfunder.com/post/swedfund-invests-12m-in-the-set-fund

SunFunder homepage
https://www.sunfunder.com

SunFund 2019 Annual Review
https://14a52b14-16f4-4bb2-85f6-3425243b8069.usrfiles.com/ugd/14a52b_6052f824a3b64cb8ad7fcae76ed750e2.pdf

Linkedin profile on SunFunder
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sunfunder/

Swedfund homepage
https://www.swedfund.se

Swedfund 2019 report
https://www.swedfund.se/media/2385/swedfund-integrated-report-2019.pdf

Past MicroCapital brief on SunFunder
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-sunfunder-raises-80m-for-solar-energy-transformation-fund-from-opic-calvert-ceniarth/

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