British International Investment (BII) has lent $7m to Okra Solar, a mesh-grid developer, to buy solar panels, batteries and other long-lead-time components in bulk and upfront. Announced at the Global Off-Grid Solar Forum in Kigali, the facility targets a procurement bottleneck. Okra had been placing orders in small batches only after deals with energy developers closed, which slowed deployment. The inventory buffer is expected to cut equipment delivery times to Nigeria from four months to two. It should support about 150,000 new connections, against an existing base of more than 13,000 households and over 2.3MW of installed capacity.

The structure is what makes the deal notable. Okra’s equipment will end up in individual mesh-grids, and their revenues will bear on its ability to repay. But the facility is working capital for procurement, not finance for one identified project. Public disclosures do not say whether it is secured against inventory, receivables or other corporate assets, or whether repayment is tied to particular customer contracts. 

October’s deal flow suggests development finance institutions (DFIs) are increasinly looking past the asset to the company that builds, owns, supplies and operates it. For some borrowers, the constraint is no longer the capital to build one project but the liquidity to buy equipment, expand fleets and fulfil several customer contracts at once. That is a shift in emphasis, not an abandonment of asset-level lending, and the evidence for it is narrow.

The working-capital bottleneck

For many clean-energy companies the binding constraint now sits in the supply chain. Distributors and equipment-as-a-service operators must buy equipment, pay suppliers and cover deployment costs before their customers’ revenues arrive. Even businesses with viable products and established demand can stall if they cannot fund the equipment to fill new orders. SIMA Funds, an impact investor focused on last-mile distribution, makes the point: a solar company can install panels in a village yet lack the inventory, working capital and receivables financing to reach the next thousand households.

The gap is large. Annual investment in off-grid solar across emerging markets was about $300m in 2024, against an estimated $21bn a year needed to reach everyone who could most efficiently be served by the technology.

Lending to the operator

Finnfund’s €10m (about $11m) senior debt investment in Bisedge Holdings meets a related but different need. Bisedge supplies electric forklifts and intralogistics services to industrial customers, bundling equipment, maintenance and trained operators under long-term service agreements, so customers need not buy fleets upfront. The loan will fund fleet expansion, mainly in Nigeria and also in Tanzania and Kenya. Unlike Okra’s facility, it is better understood as corporate lending for equipment acquisition. The forklifts earn revenue, but the financing supports Bisedge’s wider platform rather than one warehouse or customer project. It is Finnfund’s first electric-vehicle investment in Africa.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) financing for Beacon Power Services is a corporate loan, according to the bank’s project documentation. Up to $10m goes to Beacon Power Services Nigeria and its US parent to deploy smart-metering equipment and grid-management software across six of Nigeria’s eleven electricity distribution companies. The total requirement is estimated at $20.9m, with $7.5m expected from a parallel loan and the remaining $3.4m from equity. The money buys identifiable infrastructure, but it runs to the operating companies rather than to one network or metering project.

The three companies have different financing needs. Okra needs cash to purchase equipment ahead of deployment; Bisedge needs long-term debt to expand its electric forklift fleet; and Beacon needs funding to expand its metering and software operations. What they share is a lender backing a company’s capacity to grow rather than one discrete asset.

Project finance has, however, not disappeared. Maskh Nigeria’s $4m blended facility from All On and Energise Africa is conventional project finance: it will build and operate solar mini-grids across 19 communities in Jigawa and Bauchi states. Afreenergy Solar’s $13.5m package from Camco’s REPP 2 is tied to expanding clean-energy assets in Senegal. Mini-grids, rooftop solar and independent power projects still need capital tied to identifiable assets and contracted cash flows. What is changing is that corporate loans, equipment finance and working-capital facilities now sit alongside those structures, because a company’s financing needs do not end when a project reaches financial close.

More debt is on the way

Several vehicles already serve parts of this market. Nithio’s FAIR platform, backed by the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and FMO, offers inventory financing and general working capital alongside receivables-backed lending. Acumen’s Hardest to Reach initiative has raised $250m for impact-linked loans and receivables-based financing. The African Development Bank has supported a $300m household-solar receivables warehousing facility. The tools address different points in the operating cycle: inventory facilities fund purchases before deployment, receivables financing releases cash tied up in customer payments, and warehousing facilities pool receivables into larger structures.

New vehicles suggest more institutional capital may follow. Nithio launched FUEL in October, a $150m senior secured debt fund for commercial e-mobility and supporting infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa. It will write loans of $2m–$15m backed by hard assets and cash flows to fleet operators, fleet-finance providers and charging and battery-swapping companies, and is targeting a $100m first close in 2027. AFC Capital Partners, the asset-management arm of Africa Finance Corporation, is raising a $750m Infrastructure Climate-Resilient Fund, including a Nigeria-focused vehicle targeting $150m from domestic institutional investors. The fund’s mandate is broader than working capital, since it aims to build climate resilience into infrastructure from planning through operation. Its scale and structure still point towards vehicles that can finance pipelines and operating businesses, not only single projects.

Both funds are still fundraising. Their contribution will depend on whether they reach their targets and deploy the money.

October in numbers

Announced equity and debt deals totalled about $222m in October. That takes the year-to-date figure to roughly $2.17bn.

The composition matters more than the headline. A significant share came from debt, blended finance and structured transactions rather than venture equity. The five climate-related deals above (Okra, Bisedge, Beacon, Maskh and Afreenergy) add up to about $46m, or 21 per cent of the total. 

These sums are modest. A $7m working-capital facility and an $11m fleet loan can materially improve their recipients’ capacity, but they are not a systemic answer to an estimated $21bn annual need for off-grid solar alone. That benchmark covers only part of what these deals fund, since forklifts and smart meters sit outside it.

Equity was thin and concentrated. The largest round, Healthleap’s $38m seed and Series A for clinical artificial intelligence, went to an African-founded business whose founders are now based in the United States. MNT-Halan’s EGP4bn ($82m) securitised bond was a fintech balance-sheet transaction timed around its IPO preparations, not a venture raise.

A market sorting itself by instrument

The investor base was geographically diverse, but DFIs and impact funds dominated the climate deals. UK-linked capital featured through BII’s Okra facility and the Energise Africa component of Maskh. Finnfund backed Bisedge, the EBRD Beacon, and Camco’s REPP 2 Afreenergy. Kenyan and Nigerian investors appeared mostly in smaller rounds: TLcom and Enza Capital in Satlyt’s $8m seed, Catalyst Fund in Medikea and NoorNation, and Future Africa and Ajim Capital in Talent Nation’s pre-seed. Investors from Mauritius, Singapore, the UAE, Japan and European family offices appeared mainly as co-investors rather than leads.

The market is also segmenting by instrument and risk appetite. DFIs and specialist debt funds are lending to established operators in solar, e-mobility and grid technology through corporate loans, equipment finance, working capital and asset-backed structures. Commercial venture investors are concentrating equity in AI, fintech infrastructure and health software, often with US or global revenue prospects. Angels and syndicates are filling pre-seed gaps in AI, media and logistics, where institutional cheques are scarce.

The common thread is a preference for businesses that can show demand, identifiable assets, contracted revenues or a credible route to repayment. That leaves gaps. Agritech and food-loss reduction drew only small-ticket impact financing, such as Proparco’s €150,000 for Farm to Feed. PropTech and EdTech deals were mostly undisclosed or strategic stakes. Early-stage, local-currency, asset-heavy climate businesses remain hard to finance, because a company with a collections history, an operating fleet or contracted customers is easier to underwrite than one still testing its distribution.

Currency is a further constraint. Many operators earn in local currency but buy imported equipment priced in dollars or euros. Working-capital facilities can ease the timing gap between procurement and deployment. They do not remove foreign-exchange exposure, customer default risk or the difficulty of collecting from low-income households and small businesses.