Unlocked capital for a solar and smartphone financing company
2025
About the company
- Yellow operates across Africa in Malawi, Madagascar, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Zambia
- Offers Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) solar home systems and smartphones at affordable prices
- Connected 750,000+ households to electricity and smartphones
Their challenge
- Faced difficulties securing local-currency bank loans in expansion countries
- Encountered limited availability of hard currency in countries; exchange required to settle solar supplier obligations
- Dealt with investor hesitance to enter historically challenging markets and industries, notably the solar technology in Africa
The debt option space prepared by Growth Gateway validated the debt raise we had been structuring
Will Thompson
Chief Financial Officer, Yellow
Enabled £3.5M raise, with ongoing efforts to raise £46M debt in total
How we helped1
- Prepared the option space for the future debt instrument structure and prioritized key options
- Shortlisted African banks suitable for Yellow Solar’s debt needs across countries
- Built the debt raise pitch deck tailored to investor preferences
Impact generated
£3.5M
Debt financing
secured
>1K
New jobs
(expected)
82K
Units to be financed
122MT
Annual CO2 mitigated
- Support helped raise £3.5M, with ongoing efforts to secure a total of £46M in debt
- Providing PAYG financing for 1.1M units to electrify Africa and enhance digital connectivity
- Yellow was supported through Growth Gateway’s Africa Green Services Deal Accelerator (GSDA) ↩︎
To find out more about our impact, follow Growth Gateway on Linkedin or contact us