Diesel prices are up, but Odyssey is making the alternative impossible to ignore

Odyssey Energy Solutions, a female-led startup, has raised $74M to build the financing rails powering Africa’s solar shift, one small business at a time. Al Mada Ventures invested in the round alongside co-investors, FMO and Broadscale, backing Odyssey to drive impact across the continent.

Nigeria spends more on diesel generators than on grid electricity, and diesel prices continue to rise. Odyssey offers the procurement and financing infrastructure that makes it possible for businesses to replace that diesel with solar. 

Co-founded and led by Emily McAteer and Piyush Mathur, Odyssey closed the $74 million round with $27 million in equity and $47 million in debt. The capital will expand its procurement offering to solar companies, enabling installers and EPCs to scale and meet soaring demand across the continent.

This will enable the installers and EPCs to realise the energy transition opportunity to scale in order to meet the soaring demand. 

Here’s the problem Odyssey solves: installers across emerging markets are seeing a massive increase in demand, but have trouble accessing finance from traditional lenders. The most expensive part of any solar project is equipment procurement, typically making up 60-70% of total project cost. 

Odyssey helps solve the gap by purchasing equipment on behalf of solar companies, with repayment aligned to when the installer gets paid.

Since launch, Odyssey has made over $3.6 billion available on its platform to solar companies across emerging markets, and connected more than 6,000 solar companies across 50 countries with the finance and equipment they need to scale.

Capital for African energy has never been the problem; getting it to the companies that build the projects is. Odyssey built the rails that solve this, and every serious player in distributed energy increasingly runs on them. That infrastructure position, combined with an exceptional team, is why we invested,” – Omar Laalej of Al Mada Ventures said.

Demand for distributed energy is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Rising fuel costs are hitting emerging markets the hardest, against a backdrop of declining solar and storage costs and a changing global solar supply chain. The task at hand now is speed: how quickly we can get installers the equipment and capital they need to meet this demand. This raise is about meeting this unique moment.” – Emily McAteer, CEO, Odyssey Energy Solutions added.

Odyssey plans to raise another $50 million in debt within the next six months and is expanding beyond solar into procurement and supply chain financing for the e-mobility sector.

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