Lightrock has raised a $500m fund to back growth-stage companies tackling energy poverty in some of the world’s most underserved markets, securing commitments from a consortium of heavy-hitting corporate investors that includes Shell, TotalEnergies, Equinor and the Liechtenstein royal family’s LGT Group, according to a statement shared with Launch Base Africa.
The fund, which has already made four investments, will be deployed under a new brand called Accelerate7, the firm announced on Thursday. It brings the total capital Lightrock has dedicated to energy transition, energy access and climate-related investments to roughly $2bn, out of $5.8bn in overall assets the platform advises.
Accelerate7 will write initial cheques of $10m to $50m into companies that advance UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 — access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. Its focus spans three areas: access to electricity, clean cooking, and enabling technologies such as electric mobility and energy storage. The vehicle will be active across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, with the Southeast Asian deployment supported by Singapore-based TRIREC, which is operating in partnership with Lightrock.
The fund has already built a small portfolio. Its four disclosed investments are SolarSquare, an Indian rooftop solar provider; Sun King, a large off-grid solar company active in Africa and Asia; Euler Motors, an Indian manufacturer of electric commercial vehicles; and ATEC Global, an Australia-headquartered company that produces IoT-enabled induction cookstoves for clean cooking programmes in Asia and Africa.
“Across the Global South, access to reliable energy and modern cooking solutions remains one of the clearest drivers of economic opportunity and improved quality of life,” said Ademidun (Demi) Edosomwan, partner and head of energy access at Lightrock. “With Accelerate7, we are backing businesses that have already demonstrated strong execution and are ready to scale. Our focus is on finding proven operators with resilient business models that can deliver both meaningful impact and long-term value.”
Pal Erik Sjatil, Lightrock’s managing partner and CEO, described the launch as “an important milestone” that builds on the firm’s broader commitment to the energy transition. “We are grateful for the trust placed in us and excited to partner with impactful businesses as they work to expand access to modern energy and clean cooking solutions,” he said.
Oil money meets energy access
The presence of Shell, TotalEnergies and Equinor on the fund’s roster of limited partners is striking. All three are among the world’s largest oil and gas producers and have faced years of pressure from activists and shareholders to align their investment portfolios with climate goals. By committing capital to a dedicated energy access fund, they can point to concrete support for the transition in emerging economies, even as their core businesses continue to extract and sell fossil fuels.
Lightrock did not disclose the size of individual commitments from its corporate backers, nor whether any of the capital is linked to carbon credit offtake agreements — a feature that has become increasingly common in energy access funds as corporations seek to offset their emissions.
The fund’s size places it among the largest dedicated energy access vehicles raised to date. For context, the EU-backed Electrification Financing Initiative (ElectriFI) has committed over $100m since its launch, while specialist energy access fund managers such as SunFunder and responsAbility have historically raised smaller, often sub-$200m, pools of capital. A $500m cheque-book, if deployed systematically, has the potential to reshape the growth-stage segment of the market, where companies often struggle to find the patient, flexible capital needed to scale across multiple geographies with volatile currencies and underdeveloped infrastructure.
A difficult but growing market
The scale of the problem remains enormous. According to the International Energy Agency, more than 660m people worldwide still lack access to electricity, and about 2.1bn rely on polluting or hazardous fuels for cooking — a reality that contributes to millions of premature deaths each year and limits economic development. The UN’s latest progress report on SDG 7 warns that at current rates, 1.9bn people will still lack clean cooking access in 2030.
Investing in the solutions has long been viewed as a high-impact but often low-return corner of private markets, plagued by currency risk, political instability and the challenge of reaching low-income customers who can barely afford upfront costs. Yet the commercial case has been strengthening. Falling solar component prices, improvements in battery technology, pay-as-you-go financing models and the growth of carbon markets have improved the unit economics for many companies, drawing in a wider range of investors.
Lightrock is betting that by writing larger cheques into later-stage companies that have already proven their business models, it can generate both market-rate returns and verifiable impact. The firm says each Accelerate7 portfolio company will report regularly on its contribution to SDG 7, using Lightrock’s proprietary impact measurement framework. A dedicated technical assistance facility and a network of value-creation professionals are intended to help portfolio companies strengthen operations, governance and impact data collection.
The portfolio in brief
SolarSquare, headquartered in Mumbai, installs rooftop solar systems for residential and commercial customers. India has set ambitious rooftop solar targets, but the market remains fragmented, with high customer acquisition costs and policy uncertainty across states. Sun King, formerly Greenlight Planet, is one of the best-known names in off-grid solar; it has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors including General Atlantic and FMO and operates across Africa and Asia, selling solar home systems and appliances to households without grid access.
Euler Motors, based in Delhi, designs and manufactures electric three-wheelers for cargo and last-mile delivery. India’s commercial EV segment is growing rapidly, fuelled by government subsidies and tightening emissions rules. ATEC Global, meanwhile, produces induction cookstoves equipped with IoT connectivity that allows carbon credit monitoring and usage tracking, a feature that appeals to buyers seeking verifiable emissions reductions. Its stoves are used in projects across Bangladesh, Cambodia and several African countries.
What’s next
With the final close complete, Lightrock will now turn to full deployment. The fund’s $10m–$50m ticket range places it squarely in the Series B to D bracket — a space where energy access companies have historically found it difficult to attract local or generalist growth equity investors. The firm’s presence in London, along with its established network across Europe and Asia, may help bridge that gap.
Whether Accelerate7 can deliver both the impact and the returns it is promising will depend on execution: finding enough companies with the management depth, governance and unit economics to absorb large tickets without losing focus, and on the fund’s ability to manage the macro risks that have tripped up others before it. For now, its launch sends a clear signal that a handful of the world’s biggest energy corporates are willing to write substantial cheques into the energy access opportunity — even as their own transitions remain works in progress.