Frankfurt (Germany) and Abuja (Nigeria), November 2021. GreenTec Capital is pleased to report that Powerstove was selected as one of the inaugural recipients of a grant for the Africa Resilience Initiative for Entrepreneurs (ARIE). Powerstove CEO Okey Esse joined 24 other grantees in being recognised by the program intended to provide funding and technical assistance to help innovative African ventures to reinvest in their communities.
Powerstove was selected for their impactful business model centered on its innovative IoT enabled cookstove. The company’s signature product uses clean-burning biomass pellets to produce efficient heat for cooking and generate surplus energy to power home appliances. The pellets provide a low-cost alternative to carbon-emitting fuels. The stove’s IoT components are used to calculate carbon offsets to help quantify the company’s impact.
The ARIE program will support 300 high-performing African entrepreneurs over five years with technical assistance and up to US$50,000 each in community re-investment grants to spur Africa’s economic recovery amidst COVID-19. The inaugural ARIE cohort represents 6 African countries including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, and Uganda. Nigeria was particularly well represented, with 8 awardees including Powerstove. The ARIE cohort was comprised of an impressive range of businesses and sectors including health, agribusiness, energy and renewables, manufacturing, and essential services.
GreenTec is very proud to see Powerstove selected for the USADF’s ARIE grants and joining such a dynamic, competitive, and impactful cohort of businesses. The company will use the funding and leverage the technical assistance to scale their operations to impact more Africans with their energy-generating clean-burning cookstove.