SolarX focuses on West Africa, a region where electricity access remains expensive and unreliable for many commercial and industrial (C&I) businesses. This presents a significant opportunity for solar energy given the region’s vast solar radiation coverage. SolarX unlocks this opportunity by offering a one-stop shop solution for clean energy services – providing reliable and affordable energy which allows end-users to operate more efficiently in challenging environments. With this financing, SolarX will focus on developing and operating projects in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

About SolarX

SolarX is a renewable energy company focused on providing reliable, clean and affordable energy solutions to commercial and industrial clients in West Africa. By offering a one-stop shop for commercial clients, the company provides easy access to financing and energy efficiency services, while allowing the companies to focus on their core business and operate on environmentally friendly and cost-efficient energy sources.

The company was founded by Omnium Invest’s management team, who have been operational in Mali for the past 20 years and have experienced similar pain points given their nature of business. Their focus on the manufacturing sector opened their eyes to the need for cheaper, reliable and efficient energy sources.

About Energy Access Ventures

Energy Access Ventures (EAV) is a leading early-stage investment fund in Africa. With over 40 years of investment experience in Africa, EAV is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the emerging smart, distributed, cost-effective infrastructure market segment. EAV has established a reputation as a hands-on investor that works closely with its portfolio companies to capitalize on the significant opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa. EAV’s first fund (“EAV I”) was raised in February 2015 and is €75,000,000 in size with nine investment professionals. The fund is sponsored by the leading French multinational Schneider Electric and is managed by Aster Capital in Paris. Its investors are CDC Group (U.K.), managing funds for the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID), the European Investment Bank, the Fonds d’Investissement et de Soutien aux Entreprises en Afrique (FISEA) held by Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and managed by Proparco, the Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial (FFEM), administered by AFD, Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden (FMO), the Netherlands Development Finance Company, and OPEC.

About CDC Group

CDC Group is the U.K’s first impact investor with over 70 years of experience of successfully supporting the sustainable, long-term growth of businesses in South Asia and Africa. CDC is a leading player in the fight against climate change and a U.K. champion of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – the global blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for us all. The company has investments in over 1,200 businesses in emerging economies and a total portfolio value of £5.8bn. This year CDC will invest over $1.5bn in companies in Africa and Asia with a focus on fighting climate change, empowering women and creating new jobs and opportunities for millions of people. CDC is funded by the U.K government and all proceeds from its investments are reinvested to improve the lives of millions of people in Africa and South Asia. CDC’s expertise makes it the perfect partner for private investors looking to devote capital to making a measurable environmental and social impact in countries most in need of investment.

As part of the partnership, PayGo will launch its proprietary Cylinder Smart Meter across Saisan’s Gas One retail network to provide Asian households with access to pay-as-you-go liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for the first time. PayGo will leverage Saisan’s investment capital to establish a foothold in the region. 

For PayGo, the partnership provides a footprint in fast-growing emerging economies in South Asia, and a clear path to scale; leveraging Saisan’s extensive distribution and retail network, and the company’s deep expertise in downstream LPG.

For Saisan, PayGo’s technology enables the company to expand its LPG business and to strengthen its reputation as a driver of digital innovation in the LPG sector.

PayGo has also secured investment from the Japan-backed VC fund, Kepple Africa Ventures. Kepple helps blue-chip African startups raise funds from and form strategic partnerships with large Japanese corporates.

The deal sees PayGo continue to build momentum as the company gears up for its Series B raise in the coming months. 

About PayGo Energy

PayGo Energy is a venture-backed technology company, founded in Nairobi, Kenya in 2015. PayGo’s vision is to ‘Unlock Clean Cooking for the Next Billion’. PayGo builds hardware and software solutions to help grow early-stage markets for LPG. PayGo’s patented Cylinder Smart Meter (CSM) is an IoT device that accurately measures the flow of gas from an LPG cylinder in the customer’s home, enabling households to pay for gas in small amounts using mobile money. The PayGo CSM is the only LPG smart meter on the market that is certified under ATEX directives. 

About Saisan Company Ltd.

Saisan is a vertically integrated energy business, headquartered in Saitama, Japan and founded in 1945. Saisan’s vision is to become a premier company of general energy and living support businesses. in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region. Saisan is the eighth largest LPG distributor in Japan, and holds downstream investments in 9 other Asian markets (Mongolia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand Laos and India) under its Gas One Group. 

About Energy Access Ventures

Energy Access Ventures is a leading early-stage investment firm in Africa. With over 40 years of investment experience in Africa, EAV is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the emerging smart, distributed, low-carbon infrastructure market segment. EAV’s first fund was raised in February 2015 and is €75,000,000 in size with 9 investment professionals, and 13 portfolio companies to date. The fund is sponsored by the leading French multinational, Schneider Electric, and is managed by Aster Capital in Paris. Its investors are CDC, European Investment Bank, Proparco, Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial, FMO, OFID and Schneider Electric. 

Let’s face it, times are tough. We are in the midst of a major health crisis that, depending on its outcome, could lead to the biggest economic crisis in our recent history.

In this fight against Covid-19, we all have a role to play. In our article on our advice to the startups wanting to define the Next Normal, we advise the startups that can to transition parts of their business to support the war economy.

At Aster, we are delighted to see that our founders are showing such a sense of solidarity. In this article, we have chosen to shed light on 4 initiatives carried out by our Aster family.

1. Karos — Donated 100,000 carpool rides

Finance is an industry with few women and Venture Capital is no exception. They are scarcely found on startup boards, startup pitch nights and VC advisory committees.

According to the joint findings of Boston Consulting Group and Sista, women make up just 14% of all partners in the top VC firms in France; half of which have no female partners. Incidentally, only 2% of all VC investment since 2008 has gone to French-backed female-only founder teams.

Encouragingly, over the past few years, a host of new initiatives have sprung up supporting diversity and strengthening the presence of women in the industry.

The world’s largest global directory for women in venture capital to find each other, connect, and collaborate.

The Global directory of Women in VC is one such example. Created by Jessica Peltz-Zatulove and Sutian Dong, it’s the world’s largest directory for women in Venture Capital — which includes 1,700+ female investors across 46 countries. Their mission is to give women around the world the tools to better find each other, connect, and collaborate. This is how we connected with Costanza (Cathay Innovation) — having recently moved to Paris from the US — who wanted to meet other VCs.

In many cities across the globe, VC women meet through local communities — take Berlin, for example: meetups are organized every other month by Marie (Fly Ventures). There was nothing like this in the French capital.

That’s why we decided to build the first community of female VCs in Paris

We started by cold-emailing all the women in Paris-based VCs with a call to action — and we were thrilled with the number of positive responses! Gabrielle (Blackfin Capital) implemented a communication channel whilst Cecilia (Daphni) and Edna (360 Capital Partners) told us about their initiative with Tatiana (Sista) of launching office hours and meetups to support female founders in partnership with VCs.

We gave the community a name — Paris VC Ladies — and organized an official launch event on September 25, 2019 in which 100+ women with varying levels of seniority came together. It was the perfect opportunity to explain everything from the reasons for creating, and purpose of the community, through to the long-term plans to support diversity and inclusion.

We wanted to answer two questions:

1 — How can we thrive in a male-dominated industry?

2 — What can we do to support and empower female entrepreneurs?

We were honored to welcome Roxanne Varza (Director of Station F), entrepreneur Caroline Ramade (CEO of 50inTech) and investor Valentine de Lasteyrie (Partner at Fiblac and co-leader of Sista), who shared their success stories and engagement to close the gender gap. Their speeches were then followed by enthusiastic discussions about our next steps over refreshments and appetizers from Le Vélo du Soir.

So, what are the next steps we outlined?

• To arrange quarterly drinks to continue inspiring one another
• To organize training workshops delivered by partners of the community
• To help the community flourish by encouraging active involvement in sharing content (articles, recruitment and investment opportunities) through the Paris VC Ladies’ communication channel
• To support (in partnership with Sista) promising female entrepreneurs by giving them advice on their business plans and pitches

We truly believe the challenge of empowering female entrepreneurs and investors is one and the same. That is why Paris VC Ladies will be partnering with existing initiatives already supporting women entrepreneurs such as Sista, StartHer, Willa, etc.

We would like to thank French Tech Central, for kindly offering to host the event, and VC sponsors Aster, Blackfin Capital, Cathay Innovation, Demeter and Educapital for their support — without whom, this event would not have been possible.

ekWateur, the leading independent and alternative supplier of green energy, raises 10.6 million euros.

These funds, raised from Aster, historical and new investors (1 million come from its record collaborative fundraising on the Sowefund platform) will enable to accelerate its growth, develop new offers and above all continue to defend its vision of a successful ecological transition.

Swiftly  just raised a $10 million Series A round led by VIA ID, Aster Capital, Renewal Funds and Wind Capital to grow its software-as-a-service business for cities’ transportation agencies. lt works by helping cities manage their transit systems and identify points in the schedule or route that negatively impact service efficiency and reliability.

Swiftly also offers real-time passenger info that will “predict when the bus will arrive in a way that is much more accurate than the current system,” Swiftly co-founder and CEO Jonny Simkin. In fact, Simkin says Swiftly is up to 30% more accurate than current systems.

“It’s one thing to tell someone their bus is 10 minutes delayed, but if we can get to the root of the problem, it’s better for the city and stimulates the economy,” he said.

That’s where Swifty’s data platform comes in to gather insights and analyze historical data to rethink route planning and where to place stops. In one city, these insights led the customer to implement processes to change lights to green when a bus is running behind schedule.

Swiftly currently works with more than 50 cities and 2,500 transit professionals throughout the country. That comes out to powering more than 1.2 billion passenger trips per year. If you’ve never heard of Swiftly, you’re not alone. And that’s by design.

Swiftly is meant to be behind-the-scenes software that enables local transportation agencies to better manage their fleets and offerings to their respective riders. Swiftly’s customer is generally either a transit agency, a city or department of transportation.

“They buy our platform because they want to improve the passenger experience, and improve service reliability and efficiency,” Simkin said.

For the passenger, they experience Swiftly when they open Google Maps and look for transit routes or when they open a city’s specific transit service. One of Swiftly’s customers is the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose, Calif. Its CIO, Gary Miskell, says Swiftly is one of the authority’s early innovation partners.

“With Swiftly’s innovative product development, VTA has been able to improve our real time information accuracy and provide cutting edge data to our planning and operations staff thus improving our transit system performance,” Miskell said in a statement.

With the funding, the plan is to expand to several hundred cities in the U.S. and worldwide.

“Public transit is very important to our communities and cities and it’s something that needs to be more efficient,” Simkin said. “Public transit is this extensive piece of the community and there to serve everyone, but often times those tools fall short.”

For the second year in a row, Aster was thrilled to be sponsor of the VC Night, the official Viva Technology launch party set in Montorgueil Street on May 15th. From 7pm until late, Aster welcomed international startups attending VivaTech in a casual atmosphere at Le Lézard Café.
See a few pictures below.

Discover the pictures of the event:

After the success of the first edition in Munich in December 2018, Aster was thrilled to organize the 2nd Industrial Tech Talk along with Speedinvest. The event took place in our offices in Paris on Tuesday, April 9, 2019, and welcomed 4 amazing speakers (Maher Chebbo, Annie Saillard, David Vauthrin and Simone Pugliese) to discuss the critical topic of scalability for industrial startups. 

To watch the replay: