SolarHome, the pioneer in Pay-As-You-Go (“PAYG”) Solar for off-grid households in Southeast Asia, has reached the milestone of 1,000 systems installed in rural Myanmar. Having recently closed a pre-Series A round of equity funding led by Uberis Capital and debt funding from Kiva, SolarHome has moved from pilot to industrial production mode, and is expanding rapidly. In the last three months, SolarHome ramped up its installations run-rate from under 100 to over 500 systems per month. It now operates out of five hubs across Myanmar, with a field force of over 50 sales representatives and installers.
By bringing affordable renewable energy to rural families under a rent-to-own model, SolarHome is making a massive tangible impact on the life quality of bottom-of-pyramid customers in Myanmar. SolarHome’s 1,000 installations equate to bringing renewables-powered lighting to 4,900 people. This includes enabling 1,670 children to extend their study hours, 200 rural shop-owners to increase their earnings by keeping the store open after dark, and 120 fishermen to pursue productive night fishing by using the detachable electric torch provided with SolarHome’s systems.
Deputy CEO of SolarHome, Mila Bedrenets, commented: “Our traction in the last few months has been consistently exceeding our expectations. The market’s capacity is enormous, with 27 million households living off-grid in Southeast Asia, spending an estimated $3 bln on legacy energy solutions. Our controlled distribution model and robust risk management have allowed us to ramp up rapidly while simultaneously improving utilization and default rates, as well as maintaining healthy product level profitability. In the next year, we plan to bring affordable renewable energy to over 40,000 households in Myanmar. We are excited about being able to achieve solid returns for our shareholders, as well as making a massive social impact.”
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