d.light makes life brighter for millions of people by bringing clean and affordable power to rural African communities, aiming to reach one billion people by 2030.
An estimated 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have unreliable access to electricity. In 2021, more than 80% of urban residents had access to reliable electricity, compared to just 30% of residents in rural communities.
These millions of people rely on burning carbon-heavy kerosene in lamps and stoves, or running diesel generators for lighting and cooking, which threatens the environment and people’s health and quality of life.
Since 2007, d.light has taken a pioneering role in the off-grid solar and clean energy sector. Their mission is to transform the lives of one billion people by 2030 by targeting communities that currently do not have access to clean and reliable energy options.
Co-founder Sam Goldman saw his neighbour’s son badly burned by an overturned kerosene lamp. This inspired him to take a class in Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability at the Stanford Design School, where he met fellow co-founder Nedjip Tozun. Together, they developed their prototype solar lantern along with an ambitious plan to bring safe, renewable energy and light to people everywhere, especially where they have no other safe or reliable options.
Today, d.light manufactures and sells solar home systems and appliances to customers in Africa and India. They also sell through partnerships in 70 other countries. A key part of their success is d.light’s innovative daily pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model through mobile payment providers in India, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Nigeria, which makes these services both affordable and accessible.
Environmental impact is measured on CO2e avoided vs. kerosene-based lighting and clean cooking stoves, tracked through product sales. Since 2007, they’ve avoided 38 million tonnes CO2e and an estimated two million tonnes of black carbon/particulate matter. For comparison, a flight from London-Nairobi-London emits 2.74 tonnes CO2.
With $180 million in investment and revenues of $120 million last year, their PAYG solution has attracted over $600 million in finance. It’s attractive to investors, because the system ensures bills are paid regularly. As one of the largest players in the African market, they claim a 50% share of direct markets and around a 20% share globally.
Ronald Pfende, Chief Financial Officer of d.light
The potential for d.light to make clean energy available to remote communities everywhere is both exciting and inspiring. As a large, successful, purpose-led African environmental business that’s already empowered over 175 million lives, d.light is an inspiring success story for the African entrepreneurial scene.
Their ambition is to reach another 50 million people in the next three years, mitigating an additional 20 million tonnes of CO2e. With plans to expand into Zambia, DRC, Cameroon, Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Cote d’Ivoire, it aims to be a $1bn business by 2030. This will help reach their target of supplying one billion people with clean power, mitigating a total of 250 million tonnes of CO2e.
