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Article

Zafiri launches $176 million blended-finance platform to expand renewable energy across sub-Saharan Africa

Innovation Village Jun 28, 2026
Read the original Article page

TL;DR

A coalition including IFC, African Development Bank, Rockefeller Foundation, TDB Group, Nordic Development Fund, MacArthur Foundation, and FirstRand Limited has launched Zafiri, a $176 million permanent-capital blended-finance platform managed by Inspired Evolution.

The platform targets sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 600 million people lack electricity access, directing at least 50% of capital to mini-grids, solar home systems, and clean cooking businesses as the fastest and most cost-effective electrification routes.

Intelligence

Zafiri was developed under Mission 300, a World Bank Group and AfDB joint initiative aiming to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030, with distributed renewable energy expected to account for at least 50% of new connections, and Zafiri has a long-term capitalization target of $1 billion.

Zafiri's launch signals a structural shift in how development finance institutions and private investors are approaching Africa's energy gap, moving from project-by-project grants toward permanent, patient equity capital that can scale distributed renewable energy (DRE) companies over the long term.

For DRE businesses operating in sub-Saharan Africa's underserved rural markets, particularly in countries with active Mission 300 country compacts, this platform opens a new equity financing channel that has historically been the hardest to access, with the fund targeting coverage of up to 30 million people.

Over the next two to three years, the most immediate beneficiaries will be mini-grid developers and solar home system companies in markets where grid expansion is slow, including Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Mozambique.

The long-term $1 billion capitalization target also signals that Zafiri is designed to crowd in additional private capital, meaning early-stage DRE companies that can demonstrate commercial viability now are best positioned to benefit as the platform scales.

Funding extracted from this article

1
Zafiri Private placement · $176 million

Regulatory activity extracted

0

No regulatory actions were extracted from this article.

Tenders extracted

0

No tenders were extracted from this article.

Further reading

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