In the markets where we do business, the cost of capital is extraordinarily high and not reflective of actual risk. This is one of the major reasons why businesses in these markets are driven to purchase inefficient technology with low up-front costs and high operating costs, such as diesel generators for electricity generation. Investors in developed markets who are seeking higher yields should be drawn to these markets. But political risk, currency risk, underdeveloped legal infrastructure, and lack of familiarity are preventing the free flow of capital into these frontier markets.

The tools of international project finance mitigate the above mentioned emerging market risks and allow the deployment of lower yield capital to investments in frontier markets. But the tools of international project finance tend to have high per transaction costs and are only applied to megaprojects costing hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.

Megaprojects, such as large centralized power plants and associated high-voltage transmission lines take several years to plan, negotiate, arrange financing, and build. Distributed renewable energy can be deployed much faster, at lower cost, and with lower environmental impact. Imagine what that means to the school age child to whom we aim to bring electricity. What is the opportunity cost of several years of delayed access?

The tools of megaproject project finance that mitigate emerging market risks and lower capital cost are not yet available for distributed renewable energy microgrids because the investment size of each project is too small to justify the transaction cost. That is where we come in.

Our team possesses a rare combination of expertise in large infrastructure project finance in frontier markets and portfolio financing for distributed energy projects in developed markets. We have a vision for how the best business practices of both categories of asset finance should be combined and integrated into a new model that will make available much cheaper financing to these projects and much better yields to our investors and lenders.