OREANDA-NEWS. “ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Energies” has completed an investment in BBOXX, a social enterprise active in providing Solar Home system solutions in East African countries. Besides operating in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, BBOXX is present through franchises in 10 African countries, where it has brightened the life of more than 250,000 people since 2010. BBOXX bestseller 50W system comes with a set of lanterns, a cell-phone charger and a TV. Through its involvement into retail presence and provision for end customer financing, BBOXX’s product and financing innovations rely on an in-house “Pay as You Go” technology combined with a cutting edge use of big data analysis on payment track record, enabling tight credit performance management and valuable customer knowledge.

With this transaction, “ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Energies” further diversifies its portfolio both geographically and technologically. It is now active on 4 continents and in 10 countries in activities ranging from energy efficiency for social housing in Europe to Solar Home system solutions, micro grid and even biogas solutions for subsistence farmers. This portfolio confirms “ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Energies” position as a world leading impact investor fully dedicated to promoting sustainable energy access to poor populations.

Gérard Mestrallet, Chairman and CEO of ENGIE, declared: “This new transaction with BBOXX, a promising and innovative enterprise, will contribute to ENGIE’s ambition to provide clean electricity access to 20 million beneficiaries through different channels. Once again this enterprise illustrates the key role of off grid solutions to address the demand of the 1.3 billion people worldwide that are not yet served with electricity.”

Mansoor Hamayun, CEO of BBOXX, said: “We are very happy to benefit from “ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Energies” to support our expansion. Through the deployment of our systems, our objective is to sustainably improve the standards of living of millions of people and reduce CO2 emissions by over 2 million tons over the 2015-2020 period.”