Clean Cooking Efforts Poised for Growth After Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves’ Announces Support
Nairobi — 4 February 2014 — The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves announced today that Small Medium Enterprise Fundamentals’ (SMEFunds) Green Energy & Biofuels was selected as being a cookstove business with one of the highest growth potentials in the world.
The Alliance statement read: “The business has developed a ground-breaking method of producing cellulosic ethanol and converting the liquid into gel that can then be used in their cookstoves… On the occasion of the National Clean Cookstoves and Fuels Conference in Nairobi, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is pleased to announce more than US$ 3 million in grants and loans for entrepreneurs.” This was the first major international financial support for this 100% African owned and grown company.
“It started out as a dream and turned into a mission to end kerosene generation in Africa and ensure cooking doesn’t kill,” said Femi Oye, CEO and co-founder. “The Global Alliance is an instrumental partner in this fight. We value their focus on growth and impact and appreciate their rigorous due diligence process. We are proud to accept this endorsement on behalf of our thousands of people across West Africa who has been working tirelessly to bring cleaner, safer and cheaper cooking to their countries and their kitchens.”
For the past 2 years, SMEFunds Green Energy & Biofuels has converted wood waste from local sawmills into a high quality ethanol. The company has a unique approach: Even in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East, cellulosic ethanol has not yet approached commercial viability as a transport fuel. So instead, they started by selling it a cooking fuel. With the street price of kerosene usually fluctuating between $1-2 USD per liter in their markets, the company is commercially successful even on a small scale. Bottles of this renewable ethanol gel are then sold around the price of kerosene to communities across West Africa. To date, the company has sold over 120,000 cookstoves and 500,000 L of bio-ethanol cooking gel.
SMEFunds Green Energy & Biofuels is now working with top investors and financiers to accelerate their waste-to-ethanol cooking fuel expansion. They are raising their Series A equity round and would be delighted to speak with those interested in helping build Africa’s first multi-billion dollar renewable fuel company.
About the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is an innovative public-private partnership, led by the United Nations Foundation and comprising over 600 partners to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. The Alliance is working with its public, private and non-profit partners to help overcome the market barriers that currently impede the production, deployment, and use of clean cookstoves in developing countries. For more information please see: www.cleancookstoves.org
About SMEFunds Green Energy & Biofuels
SMEFunds Green Energy & Biofuels is a social enterprise based in Lagos, Nigeria promoting safer and cleaner biofuel gel with their patented Cookstoves as an alternative to dangerous and harmful fuel. They are the first partners of UN Sustainable Energy for All High-Impact Initiative for Sustainable Bioenergy in Africa.. Recenty, they were named the best clean energy investment opportunity in West Africa and overall winner at the West Africa Forum for Clean Energy Financing Business Plan competition in Accra.They were judged by representatives from major international organizations such as Leo Blyth (IFC, Lighting Africa Initiative), Musa Salah (EcoBank), Godfrey Mwindaare (Acumen Fund West Africa), Professor Joseph Adelegan (Ecowas Bank for Investment and Development), and Sander Smits van Oyen (SOVEC). For more information on please see: http://gebiofuels.com