Burn Manufacturing, the Nairobi-based climate tech firm behind the energy-efficient Jikokoa charcoal stove, has raised $80 million in a landmark deal to expand its clean cooking operations across Southern and Central Africa.
The financing package — comprising debt and performance-based grants — was signed last week during the Africa Energy Forum in Cape Town. It is anchored by the Trade and Development Bank (TDB) Group and its concessional financing arm, the Trade and Development Fund (TDF), with support from the World Bank through the ASCENT program, a regional platform aimed at scaling access to clean energy.
Founded in 2011 by American-born entrepreneur Peter Scott, Burn manufactures charcoal and electric cookstoves in its Kenyan factory, employing over 1,000 people. The company’s cookstoves are already in use across 10 African countries, reducing household fuel consumption by up to 60% and offering measurable carbon savings — a crucial lever for climate finance.
“This ‘first-of-its-kind’ investment will allow us to provide significant subsidies to customers in exchange for the future value of carbon credits,” said Scott, Burn’s founder and CEO. “Our IoT-enabled cooking appliances are setting new standards for carbon credit transparency and pricing, which benefits us, our customers, and our financiers.”
The new capital will support the distribution of Burn’s induction and biomass cookstoves to over 429,000 households across Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mozambique.
The $80 million investment is one of the first under the Accelerating Sustainable and Clean Energy Access Transformation (ASCENT) initiative, a joint platform led by TDB Group and the World Bank to mobilize blended finance — commercial loans and results-based grants — for distributed renewable energy (DRE) and clean cooking ventures.
ASCENT is a flagship component of Mission 300, an ambitious World Bank and African Development Bank-led campaign to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030 — half through private-sector-led DRE solutions.
“This platform and partnership represent the kind of bold, regional innovation we need to close the energy access gap,” said Erik Fernstrom, incoming Regional Director for Infrastructure for Eastern and Southern Africa at the World Bank. “By enabling African entrepreneurs to grow and deliver at scale, ASCENT is a vital part of the regional push to achieve universal access.”
TDB Group President Admassu Tadesse added: “This first regional African energy access financing platform launched with ASCENT sets the stage for significant scaling, in line with the Mission 300 initiative.”
Other clean energy providers, such as Rwanda-based Ignite Power, also secured performance-based grants through the ASCENT program. Together, the first wave of ASCENT-backed companies aims to reach three million people with clean energy and cooking access — one million by the end of this year and two million more by mid-2026.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the world’s most underserved regions for clean cooking, with over 900 million people still relying on wood, charcoal, or other polluting fuels. The knock-on effects are massive: deforestation, indoor air pollution, and burdens on women and girls, who bear the brunt of fuel collection.
Burn’s products — ranging from charcoal to induction stoves — are equipped with IoT technology, enabling precise tracking of usage and emissions reduction, which can be converted into tradable carbon credits. These carbon revenues help lower the cost of stoves for end users and make the business more commercially sustainable.
“BURN is confident that this will be the first of many such deals with TDB and similar institutions,” said Scott. “Enormous thanks to the ASCENT team, TDF, the World Bank, and my team for getting this deal over the line.”
The deal also cements the role of the Trade and Development Bank Group as a rising force in Africa’s climate finance ecosystem. Established in 1985, TDB Group is a regional multilateral development bank with a mandate to finance trade, regional integration, and sustainable development across Eastern and Southern Africa. It manages several subsidiaries including TDB Asset Management, the Trade and Development Fund (TDF), and the TDB Academy.
Since 2020, TDB Group has collaborated with the World Bank Group on over $1.5 billion in climate and infrastructure deals. More than half a billion dollars from this pool has already been dedicated to expanding electrification in frontier African economies.
The Trade and Development Fund (TDF), which structured the performance-based grant to Burn, specializes in concessional and impact-driven finance for underserved sectors and groups — ranging from MSMEs to youth and women entrepreneurs.
By aligning these efforts with ASCENT, the TDB Group is positioning itself as a leader in blending commercial and catalytic capital to scale clean energy access.