The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has made a US$10 million equity investment into energy access company CrossBoundary Access. The investment is expected to help CrossBoundary Access expand its portfolio of distributed renewable energy assets, including mini-grids, battery-as-a-service (BaaS), and adjacent technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The equity investment by IFC was facilitated by the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), a blended finance vehicle supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.
“We’re grateful for IFC’s investment and endorsement of our vision for scaling a distributed energy access utility in Africa. We’re currently bringing power to over 170,000 people in Nigeria and Madagascar, and this capital will allow us to move closer to our goal of electrifying 1 million people,” said Humphrey Wireko, Managing Director, CrossBoundary Access.
The IFC joins a group of leading investors that invested in CrossBoundary Access including ARCH Emerging Markets Partners, Bank of America, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, and the African Development Bank’s Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA).
“This investment builds on the support of the investors and partners who backed CrossBoundary Access from the beginning. Their commitment helped demonstrate that mini-grids can be financed at scale. IFC’s investment marks another important step toward unlocking the capital needed to bring electricity to millions more people across Africa,” said Gabriel Davies, Managing Director, CrossBoundary Access.
Equity investment to help improve energy access in underserved communities
CrossBoundary Access partners with leading developers across Africa to finance and operate projects that deliver reliable electricity to underserved communities. The investment will support the continued build-out of projects with partners including Ignite Energy Access and Mobile Power (MOPO) in Nigeria and ANKA in Madagascar, and will also allow the company to explore new partnership opportunities in other Sub-Saharan African markets.
“Mini-grids are an important part of the solution to expanding energy access in rural and underserved communities. CrossBoundary Access is helping create the conditions needed to scale mini-grid deployment across Africa by bringing together the right capital, partnerships, and operating models,” said Soumya Banerjee, Acting Africa Director for Infrastructures and Natural Resources, IFC.
“IFC’s investment supports the continued growth of this approach and aligns with Mission 300’s goal of expanding access to reliable electricity across Africa,” concluded Banerjee.
