Coming off a recent US$22.5 million Series D funding round, d.light's momentum continues as it secured US$7.5 million in debt financing to expand its existing solar lantern and home system solutions, and to bring new products to market, including a solar-powered TV. The funding from impact investment manager Developing World Markets supports d.light's mission to transform the way off-grid households and small businesses around the world use and pay for energy.
"We believe that capital markets can create positive economic and social change, and that d.light can provide the kind of financial and social returns we seek from our investments," said Peter Johnson, Managing Partner of Developing World Markets. "We're proud to support d.light's mission to bring safe and affordable solar energy solutions to the more than two billion people without reliable access to energy."
d.light's Series D round of funding consisted of US$15 million in equity, US$2.5 million in debt and over US$5 million in grants. With this latest round of debt financing, d.light expects to ramp up sales for its products, in particular of the solar home systems, and also bring new products to market, including solar-powered appliances, such as TVs.
With commanding market share in emerging markets, d.light is the leading provider of solutions in the off-grid solar industry. The company sells hundreds of thousands of units per month, while maintaining excellent quality at scale. d.light operates five distribution hubs in East Africa, West Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and the United States.
"We're thankful to Developing World Markets for this support, which helps d.light accelerate development and distribution of our increasingly popular solar home systems and our portable solar products," said Kamal Lath, CFO of d.light. "By enabling us to build on our product offerings, this funding helps us empower people to improve their quality of life."
As of August 2016, d.light has impacted 65 million people with its solar lighting and home systems, putting it on track for achieving its goal of empowering 100 million lives by 2020. By bringing energy to the 2.3 billion people around the world without reliable access to grid-supplied electricity, d.light has helped base-of-the-pyramid families save $5.2 billion in energy expenses and create 34 billion additional hours of productivity for work and study. d.light products have offset 23 million tons of CO2 and generated 127 GWH from renewable energy sources.
"This new funding better enables us to bring safe and affordable solar home systems to families without a reliable grid connection. We're grateful for the support of Developing World Markets," said d.light CEO Ned Tozun. "Their confidence in us is a testament to the hard work of our global team and our many partners. It's an honor to collaborate with so many people who care about this important work."