Frankfurt (Germany) and Lagos (Nigeria), March 2021. GreenTec Capital is very pleased to report that Powerstove Energy is one of seven start-ups to be awarded funding from the Jua Kickstarter Program. Each of the seven participants was awarded an undisclosed portion of a US$ 2M award. The Jua Kickstarter Program is operated by The Jua Fund whose intention is to help Africa reach its potential – by helping entrepreneurs who need assistance to realize their dreams.
The awards were announced this week Mr. Adam Molai, Founder and Chairman of Jua Fund & TRT Investments. PowerStove, a Nigerian based company, converts non-recyclable paper, wood and agricultural by-products of various crops into biomass pellets, which are then used to fuel its affordable, fuel efficient and smokeless cook-stove. Among PowerStove’s innovations is an IOT enabled clean-burning cookstove is able to produce 50 watts of continuous power, providing enough energy to charge phones, lights, a camera and more; and surplus power is stored in an attached Lithium-ion battery for use when stove is off.
Immediately following the virtual announcement of the winners, Mr. Molai spoke to the winners. “We love your passion and really believe in what you are doing. We will be there for you along the way.”
According to Vera Baker, Investment Advisor at Jua Fund, “Over the course of five days we selected finalists to participate in Question & Answer sessions with an esteemed panel of judges…successful candidates proceeded to next round.”
According to Mr. Okey Esse, CEO of PowerStove, “There were a lot of very gifted entrepreneurs among the contestants with highly innovative ideas. I am very fortunate and proud to have been selected to receive financial support from JUA.”
Mr. Molai told recipients “The quality of projects and how much the entrepreneurs impressed us pushed us into a decision to double this amount (US1M) to $2M,” with the financial support of SIMBA Global Startups. Dr. Cheryl Kisunzu, Co-Founder of SIMBA Global Startups, offered an inspiring sentence to end of the ceremony. She told the winners “The best is yet to come!”