Bidhaa Sasa, a Kenya-based last-mile distributor of lower-emission cooking and lighting products, recently borrowed USD 500,000 from Spark+ Africa Fund, an investor in “modern energy solutions.” Bidhaa Sasa plans to use the proceeds to acquire clean cooking implements for provision to approximately 68,000 households over 30 months using its “woman-to-woman distribution model and a group guarantee-based lending approach.”
The company partners with US-based Biolite on a co-branded version of the JikoMalkia charcoal stove, which can save users USD 200 on fuel costs, while reducing air pollution and forest degradation. Bidhaa Sasa’s other products include LPG cylinders and solar lighting systems. The company was established in 2015, and focuses on rural and financially excluded clients in Kenya and Uganda. As of 2023, the company has provided 110,000 products to 86,000 customers, of whom roughly 64,500 are women.
Spark+, which has a target volume of USD 70 million, was launched in March 2022 by the US-based Clean Cooking Alliance, Switzerland-based investor Enabling Qapital and the Netherlands-based Stichting Modern Cooking to assist companies in sub-Saharan Africa that “offer life-improving biomass, biogas, ethanol, electric, and LPG-based cooking technologies to low-income consumers.”
By Renata Samadova, Research Associate
Sources and Additional Resources
Spark+ press release
https://www.sparkafricafund.com/_files/ugd/551d1b_e4d9a542b6644516bf369c76eced4971.pdf
Bidhaa Sasa homepage
https://bidhaa.co.ke
Spark+ homepage
https://www.sparkafricafund.com
Previous MicroCapital article on Spark+
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-to-fund-biogas-digesters-cookstoves-in-kenya-sumac-microfinance-bank-borrows-2m-from-spark-africa/
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