SunCulture, a Kenyan provider of solar-powered irrigation systems, has closed a $10 million securitisation of receivables linked to its productive-use solar assets, in a transaction that its partners say could establish a replicable model for financing distributed energy in Africa.
The deal, announced on Thursday, comprises a $10 million senior secured financing provided by the Mirova Gigaton Fund to a dedicated special purpose vehicle (SPV) established to acquire receivables originated by SunCulture Kenya. Kaleidofin, a fintech platform, acted as portfolio monitoring agent and supported the structuring of the transaction through its Mauritius-based SPV programme, the ki Platform PCC.
The transaction is designed to allow SunCulture to recycle capital that would otherwise be tied up in longer-dated customer receivables, freeing up resources to expand its pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) solar irrigation business. SunCulture says it has sold over 85,000 solar irrigation systems and pumps since its founding in 2012, serving smallholder farmers through a “Pay-As-You-Grow” model that bundles insurance and warranty services with affordable repayment schedules.
“Access to irrigation in Kenya has never been limited by farmer demand. It has been limited by the lack of affordable, scalable solutions,” said Samir Ibrahim, co-founder and CEO of SunCulture. “This structure addresses all three and gives us the confidence to scale customer financing on long-term, FX-protected capital. Faster recycling of capital means more farmers irrigating sooner.”
The securitisation marks a step forward for productive-use energy financing in Africa, a sector that has historically struggled to attract institutional capital at scale. By pooling receivables from distributed solar irrigation assets into a structured vehicle, the transaction aims to demonstrate that such assets can be financed through capital market solutions rather than relying solely on balance-sheet lending or grant funding.
Rim Azirar, deputy head of emerging market energy transition at Mirova, said the deal “breaks new ground” for the sector. “Beyond supporting SunCulture’s continued growth, we believe this transaction can provide a replicable blueprint for other companies and help unlock new sources of long-term capital for productive-use energy and climate solutions across the continent,” Azirar said.
A Financing Gap for Productive Assets
The transaction addresses a persistent challenge in emerging-market asset financing: growth is often constrained by a lack of working capital. SunCulture’s model, which extends credit to farmers who typically lack access to traditional asset financing, ties up cash in long-term receivables. This slows the company’s ability to purchase new inventory and expand its customer base.
The new securitisation structure is intended to mitigate that constraint. By selling receivables to an SPV financed by the Mirova Gigaton Fund, SunCulture can accelerate the recycling of capital while transferring certain risks off its balance sheet. Kaleidofin’s role includes ongoing risk monitoring, performance reporting, and covenant compliance oversight through its proprietary analytics platform. The firm also used its “ki score” credit decisioning model, built on more than 30 million data points, to select receivables and model cash flows.
Sucharita Mukherjee, co-founder and CEO of Kaleidofin, said the transaction “demonstrates how structured finance can channel institutional capital into underserved segments of the economy.” She added that the customised structuring for a portfolio of distributed solar irrigation receivables “contributes to a more scalable financing ecosystem for productive-use climate assets in East Africa, and supports the shift from one-off transactions toward repeatable, investable financing frameworks.”
Building on Prior Financing
The securitisation builds on Mirova’s existing relationship with SunCulture. Mirova, which acquired specialist clean-energy lender SunFunder in 2022, previously supported the company through a $12 million syndicated debt facility led by Mirova SunFunder and financed through its Solar Energy Transformation Fund and Gigaton strategy. That facility, announced in 2023, was aimed at financing inventory and receivables for SunCulture’s Kenyan subsidiary.
More recently, in September 2025, SunCulture partnered with fintech platform Bridgin on a $15 million receivables financing structure designed to unlock local currency capital for climate-smart agriculture. That structure also used a ring-fenced, off-balance-sheet SPV and was intended to allow SunCulture to reach more customers while de-risking its balance sheet. SunCulture has also secured $5 million in growth equity from WaterEquity’s Water & Climate Resilience Fund and an additional $11 million line of credit for expansion across sub-Saharan Africa.
The Mirova Gigaton Fund, which provided the senior secured financing, is structured as a Luxembourg-domiciled SICAV RAIF closed to new subscriptions. The fund carries exposure to a range of risks, including credit, liquidity, currency, and emerging-market risks, according to disclosures.
The Broader Context
The transaction comes as climate adaptation and agricultural resilience become increasingly urgent priorities across Africa. Smallholder farmers, who make up the majority of the continent’s agricultural producers, remain highly vulnerable to erratic rainfall patterns. Solar-powered irrigation offers a means to reduce that vulnerability while improving yields and household incomes. Yet access to affordable financing for such systems has remained limited.
SunCulture’s PAYGo model, which it describes as “Pay-As-You-Grow,” allows farmers to pay for equipment over time. The company says its systems can increase yields by up to 300% and reduce water usage by 80% through efficient drip irrigation. More than 90% of its customers use the pumps not only for farming but also for drinking, cooking, and cleaning, according to WaterEquity.
Still, the model’s reliance on customer credit means that SunCulture’s growth is constrained by its ability to finance receivables. The new securitisation is a test of whether structured finance can solve that constraint at scale. If successful, it could encourage other productive-use energy companies in Africa to pursue similar transactions, potentially deepening the pool of institutional capital available for distributed renewable energy assets.
The SunCulture deal lands as the wider off-grid solar sector edges closer to public capital markets. In June this year, African Frontier Capital, d.light’s securitisation partner, issued a $50 million green bond listed on the London Stock Exchange’s International Securities Market — the first time the off-grid solar sector accessed public bond markets through a PAYGo receivables securitisation structure. SunCulture’s $10 million transaction is smaller and privately placed, financed by the Mirova Gigaton Fund rather than a public bond, but it follows the same core proposition: that receivables from distributed solar assets can be packaged into an investable structure.
“As climate adaptation and agricultural resilience become increasingly urgent priorities across Africa, innovative financing structures such as this one can play an important role in scaling access to productive-use renewable energy technologies while fostering the development of deeper and more inclusive capital markets,” the partners said in a joint statement.