Amar Inamdar has emerged as a leader in unlocking climate finance for Africa.
Inamdar is managing director of KawiSafi Ventures, which is based in his native Kenya and focused on investing in energy access and a 'Just Transition' in Africa. It is currently raising its second fund.
KawiSafi means 'clean energy' in Swahili. Created by impact investor Acumen, the venture capital fund invests in companies that provide and enable access to clean energy products and services to low-income and off-grid populations in Africa.
Over the past year, the fund finished deploying the $67 million it raised. Examples of investments include, distributed solar company Bboxx, off-grid energy company BioLite, lending platform for pay-as-you-go solar companies Lendable, and UK-headquartered InspiraFarms, which supplies solar-powered cold storage facilities for farms.
Another example is d.light, which provides solar lanterns and other off-grid solar products using pay-as-you-go financing models. Nigerian asset manager Chapel Hill also invested $7.4 million in the firm.
Inamdar leads the strategy, fundraising, portfolio management, pipeline development and team building for the fund. He also serves as a director on the boards of several portfolio companies, such as BioLite and Lendable.
The fund is anchored by the Green Climate Fund. Other investors include French insurer Axa and German impact investor Golding, as well as some European wealth managers and high-net-worth individuals and family offices from the US, says Inamdar.
KawiSafi portfolio companies have cumulatively impacted about 167 million lives globally, 57% of whom are below the World Bank's poverty line, he says, and have averted 39 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent since the fund's inception.
According to publicly available information from the Green Climate Fund and African Development Bank websites, KawiSafi is now raising a second fund, this time with a blended finance structure. KawiSafi II will have a 'junior equity layer', with two features: first-loss protection to manage downside risk, and a differential preferred return to allow the senior private investors to receive distributions up to a higher preferred return before the junior equity participates in a lower preferred return. The Green Climate Fund and African Development Bank announced commitments of up to $60 million of junior equity.
Inamdar says many institutional investors are still struggling to invest in Africa, partly as a result of the perception of risk.
"There's been broad tarring of the brush," he says. "If you look at S&P ratings, you just write it off."
But he points to the supportive demographics and economics of Africa's young and rapidly growing population, and the wealth of opportunities to be found in the transition to a net-zero economy.
He has identified hundreds of potential investment opportunities and is particularly excited by the renewables and energy storage-based disruption in the energy sector, particularly to replace diesel back-up power generators, and the opportunity within electric transport, particularly for two-wheeled vehicles.
"We are confident there is a strong pipeline," he says.
He sees three important ways in which capital can be encouraged to flow to emerging markets.
The first is to have a more sophisticated understanding of the markets, and that they are "not all one colour" and there are compelling opportunities "beneath the surface".
The second is a need for more "creativity" and "innovative structuring" to crowd-in private sector investment, such as the fund he is currently marketing.
And the third is better appreciation for the "amazing talent in the continent", both in terms of the underlying investment opportunities and the investment specialists, such as KawiSafi capable of finding investable deals.
He is actively banging the drum for opportunities, having represented Africa on the platform for UN Climate Change High-Level Champions at COP28 in Dubai.
His 'TED talk' on 'The thrilling potential for off-grid solar energy' has had over 1.7 million views.