Gaia Impact

🔥 Almost a year after launching the Gaia Energy Impact Fund II, we are thrilled to share our new 2024 Impact Report, our main observations and convictions and to show how our portfolio companies offer a specific response to #SDG7 and many others!   🌍 Read it and explore with us the new frontiers for impact investing!  👉 https://lnkd.in/eg5M38mH #impactinvesting #impactreport #SDG

Exciting times ahead for candi solar ! The company has closed a Series C of $38m with strong backers, this equity raise will finance the deployment of additional 200MW of solar projects for C&I customers in India and South Africa. Congrats Philippe, Rodrigo , Fabio and the whole team for this great journey, Gaia Impact is proud of being a longstanding partner of candi since our first investment in 2018, and the best is still to come! 

👀 Wanted to read the whole thing ? 🇪🇺👊🏼 The EU needs to make impact investing a priority to achieve the fair transition - position paper of the 48 #UnitedforImpact members to candidates in EU elections In order to realize the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we need around $4.5 trillion per year in impact investing. Today, we only have 1 trillion… As Europeans will go to the polls from today to Sunday, impact investors are calling on the candidates in the European parliamentary elections and on the Commission to act on several levers to redirect private capital towards the twin environmental and social transition. We call on EU institutions to : 🎯 Introduce a clear impact investing category in #SFDR 💶 Leverage EU funding to increase private impact investments 🧩 Complete the environmental taxonomy with a social #taxonomy ⚓️ Create a ‘mission-driven’ company status at EU level 🔍 Address the reporting gap for extra financial data for SMEs European Commission Ursula von der Leyen @Nicolas Schmit Dr. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann @Terry Reintke Bas Eickhout Mairead McGuinness @Valdis Dombrovskis John Berrigan Martin Špolc Hélène Bussières Impact Europe Jana Bour Nicolas CELIER Geoffroy Bragadir Ring Capital List of all members in the comments ⬇

🚀 Gaia Impact was thrilled to attend #EAIF2024 in Lagos, organised by the Alliance for Rural Electrification, in partnership with the Delegation of the European Union Delegation to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and ECOWAS, and with the support of GET.invest. It was again a great opportunity to meet with our existing partners, notably portfolio companies MyJouleBox, SureChill, Solaris Offgrid, and to create new partnerships for more sustainable projects in Africa.   🤝 We wanted to thank specialists of the distributed energy sector who were reunited for very insightful discussions aiming at boosting investments and cooperation in the sector. Gaia participated in a panel on boosting clean energy investments alongside esteemed representants from Triplejump, UNDP, All On, GET.invest and Qotto. We also had the opportunity to share our views on key success factors equity investors consider when looking at #minigrids companies, at an ADA asbl-organized workshop gathering numerous operators – great snapshot of the state of the sector!   ☀ The #EAIF is an annual investment event for the renewable electrification sector, fostering business and investor partnerships for the purpose of sustainable electricity access, decarbonation, economic growth and fighting against climate change.   #impactinvesting #renewableeergy #EAIF2024

Frédéric Pfister and Guilhem Dupuy will be representing Gaia Impact in Lagos this week! Get in touch!

Hélène Demaegdt, President & Founder of Gaia Impact, had the pleasure of speaking at EMERGING Valley 2023, a flagship event bringing together key players in impactful innovation, forging a strong and innovative digital alliance between Europe and Africa. Our collaboration and discussions contributed to an exceptional White Paper featuring our recommendations and pleas! We invite you to discover and download the official EMERGING Valley White Paper, featuring Gaia Impact's contributions as impact investor and those of other visionary experts. It's a unique opportunity to plunge into the heart of the debates and perspectives that are shaping the digital future of our continents. Let's meet again for the 2024 edition of EMERGING Valley! Click here: https://lnkd.in/emuVzH2A #whitepaper #emergingvalley #africa #impactinvesting

🌍 Exciting news from Freetown, Sierra Leone! Alice Mével, Impact Manager at Gaia Impact and a PhD student, recently embarked on a research expedition to Freetown, Sierra Leone, aimed at comprehensively understanding the uptake of renewable energy among SMEs. Supported by Gaia Impact and in collaboration with Easy Solar, this research holds significant importance for several reasons: • Addressing Urgent Challenges: A staggering 76% of firms in sub-Saharan Africa grapple with severe power outages. By focusing on renewable energy solutions, especially solar generators, we're directly confronting this critical issue. • Economic Significance: Research indicates that SMEs bear substantial costs due to unreliable electricity. Our study seeks to shed light on how embracing renewable energy can lead to both short-term savings and long-term economic prosperity for SMEs. • Environmental Stewardship: While diesel generators have traditionally been relied upon to mitigate electricity unreliability, they exact a heavy toll on the environment. In sub-Saharan Africa, they are significant contributors to both local pollution (as the main emitter of NOx and PM2.5 in the power sector) and global emissions (with diesel generator emissions equivalent to 20% of vehicle emissions in the region). Hence, transitioning to cleaner energy alternatives is imperative for environmental sustainability. 🌞 Stay tuned for further updates as we pave the path toward a greener, more resilient future for businesses in Sierra Leone and beyond!

Returning last week from a very refreshing trip in Benin where we visited our partner company MyJouleBox / ARESS . Lots of good vibes from the team after a year 2023 marked by lots of growth, impact and new projects deployed, including Les Soleils du Bénin, with 12 minigrids built and operated across Benin. With boots on the ground for more than 10 years, local roots, a strong entrepreneurial spirit and high technical expertise, MyJouleBox / ARESS is definitely best position to address critical energy access gaps in West Africa, with a wide range of solar solutions (residential, minigrid, C&I), offering quality energy for all. Congrats Paul & Leonide, and all the team for this incredible entrepreneurial journey!  Gaia Impact

60 Decibels, the social impact measurement company, shared their latest impact performance report "Why Off-grid Energy Matters 2024"!   🤝60 Decibels collected insights from more than 79,000 off-grid energy customers in 31 countries and thanked 250 social entreprises, non-profit organisations, and companies for allowing those interviews, including 5 of Gaia's portfolio companies representing more than 1.7 million beneficiaries as of December 2023.   This report highlights numerous things to know about the impact of off-grid energy including the following:   ☀️For more than half of all customers, the quality of their and their families’ lives improved significantly as a result of their new-found energy access. The sector continues to reach previously unserved populations – for three-quarters of customers this was their first time having access to the product category they purchased.   🌍Over half of customers live in rural areas, so the sector is close to the last-mile by some measure. This is a good thing since impact is greater and satisfaction is higher for the sector’s rural customers – who are three times more likely to be living in poverty than their urban peers. They’re also more likely to see improved safety, health, knowledge, and convenience benefits from gaining energy access.   💡Financing comes with pros and cons. Nearly three-quarters of customers they spoke to use some form of financing to pay for their energy access. Pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) offers a chance to reach new customers and enhance affordability, but has led to some customers taking on more than they can manage.   Here's the full report! 👉 Why Off-Grid Energy Matters 2024 (60decibels.com)   #energyaccess #impactinvesting #offgrid

Happy to join the #AfricaNext First Circle and become its 41st member 🤝!   The Africa Next First Circle is the circle of top tier accelerators & VC funds that quarterly propose co-investment opportunities coming from their company portfolios to international investors during the recurring Africa Next e-Pitching sessions.    Thanks a lot to the Africa Next Executive Committee to welcome us into the Africa Next First Circle: EuroQuity - Bpifrance; Digital Africa, #AfricaGrow by DEG Impact, KfW and Allianz Global Investors, AfricInvest Group and Sawari Ventures!   Dear investors, if you want to know more about Gaia Impact, please join the Africa Next e-Pitching session on Mars 07, 2024 at 4pm (CET)!   ➡️ To register, click on the link on the comment section.