South African climate-tech Hohm Energy secures $8m to scale adoption of rooftop solar
Summary
Amidst a growing energy crisis, South Africa finds itself in the grip of escalating power shortages, resorting to daily electricity rationing to prevent a nationwide grid collapse.Eskom, the state-run power generator, has acknowledged a staggering power shortfall of over 6,000 megawatts at times.In addressing these challenges, Hohm Energy, a Climate Fintech is providing an alternative and sustainable energy source to the 7.7M addressable households, helping to ease the strain on the national grid. The funding marks the largest seed round for a tech startup in South Africa and was led by E3 Capital and 4DX Ventures. It also attracted participation from new investors, including Breega, E4E Africa, TO.org, Tekton Ventures, Sunu Capital, Musha Ventures, and Climate Capital Ventures.Launched in 2021 by Tim Ohlsen and Emir Gluhbegovic, Hohm Energy has revolutionised the entire end-to-end solar journey, having built its own proprietary software platform and marketplace that helps connect everyone in the value chain. Hohm Energy customers can have their properties solar energy requirements determined digitally and effectively through the platform and they get access to credit financing and an order and fulfilment process that extends to after-sales services including repair and maintenance.Hohm Energy has struck partnerships with the majority of South Africas retail financial institutions, such as Investec, Nedbank, MFC, FNB, Wesbank and Capitec customers have access to the platforms finance and credit scoring process to secure structured financing from these institutions. Our robust software platform and fintech marketplace, which enables us to offer value to all stakeholders, is pivotal in enhancing the efficiency of rooftop solar installations and ultimately mitigating the severity of load-shedding being experienced.