Climate tech startup KOKO secures Rand Merchant Bank backing
RMB has partnered with climate technology leader KOKO, acting as the lead-mandated arranger and financier for an innovative carbon financing solution, amplifying KOKO's climate goals.
In Africa, more than 900 million individuals use polluting fuels like charcoal for cooking, contributing directly to extensive deforestation, causing over 600,000 deaths annually due to household air pollution, and emitting greenhouse gases on a scale comparable to the global aviation industry. To address this challenge, a comprehensive energy transition to clean and modern fuels is imperative across the continent.
KOKO is at the forefront of driving this transition, eliminating the demand for charcoal by supplying bioethanol cooking fuel to over 1.1 million homes through a sophisticated network of KOKO Fuel ATMs in numerous corner stores across urban Kenya. The resulting carbon revenues are shared with households as a non-government energy subsidy, facilitating even the most economically disadvantaged households in making the switch.
Key Takeaways
In 2022, climate-tech funding in Africa grew 3.5x to over $860m, making climate Africa’s most funded sector after fintech. The funding was largely driven by clean energy technologies. Broadly, the cleantech sector attracted the most foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into Africa in 2022, per the Africa Attractiveness Report by global consulting giant EY. The timing of this surge in climate funding couldn’t be better. Despite contributing only 3.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Africa faces the brunt of climate change's wrath. For comparison, China, the United States, and the European Union account for 23%, 19%, and 13% respectively. Yet in 2019, five of the ten countries most affected were African nations, bearing the consequences of devastating weather disasters. Read more about this in our Pulse54 newsletter.
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