Charm Impact Raises Nearly £300,000 in Equity to Scale Local Energy Access Entrepreneurs in Africa and Asia

London, 03 November 2020 — Today, Charm Impact, a peer-to-peer impact investment platform providing debt finance to early-stage clean energy entrepreneurs in developing economies, announced that it had successfully raised £273,520 in equity investment through crowdfunding site Crowdcube.

The crowdfunding campaign surpassed its initial goal by 273%. Charm will use the funds to scale up operations over the next three years, expand their team and become regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, which will allow Charm to launch more projects, increase their portfolio of supported entrepreneurs and expand their geographical reach.

Charm focuses on supporting early-stage companies that are providing clean energy to communities in developing economies that lack access to electricity and clean cooking, with a dedicated focus on supporting local entrepreneurs and an investment lens for gender diversity. Since their founding in 2018, Charm has been supported by Innovate UK’s Energy Catalyst programme, Energy 4 Impact’s Crowd Power initiative and the Good Energies Foundation. With 5 active loans across West Africa and India and no defaults across the portfolio, Charm’s go-to-market model has been refined and is now ready to scale.

“For the energy access sector to truly scale over the long term, there is a dire need to support the advancement of early-stage, locally owned companies,” said Charm co-founder Gavriel Landau. “Charm is uniquely positioned to support these businesses and accelerate growth of the companies that will become an investable pipeline for later-stage investors.”

About Charm Impact

Charm Impact is an impact investment platform providing loans of up to 24 months that range from £10,000 to £250,000 for local, clean energy entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia. For more information, visit https://charmimpact.com/

Media contact: hello@charmimpact.com