Powering the Future: How SunFi is Democratizing Solar Financing in Nigeria

Across Africa, millions grapple with unreliable grid power, leading to an overreliance on costly and polluting generators. But what if there was a smarter, more sustainable way to power homes and businesses? That’s the challenge SunFi set out to solve.

Founded to bridge the gap between solar providers and consumers, SunFi is facilitating howNigerians can access financing for clean energy solutions. By leveraging innovative financing models, the company has enabled thousands of households and businesses to transition to solar, accelerating the shift towards a low-carbon future.

This month, we spotlight Rotimi Thomas, CEO & Co-founder of SunFi, a #BackedbyVP founder driving impact in the clean-tech sector. In this conversation, Rotimi takes us through SunFi’s journey - its milestones, lessons in climate-tech fundraising, and the future of solar financing in Africa.

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1. SunFi emerged to tackle the challenges of unreliable grid power and overreliance on generators. What key milestones have defined your journey and mission to transform clean energy financing since you launched?

Rotimi: SunFi has focused on building the capacity of the solar ecosystem in the Nigerian market to increase the ability of last-mile solar providers to transition end consumers to solar. Since 2022, we’ve facilitated the deployment of over 1,500 solar systems. Each system typically impacts up to 30 beneficiaries a year, meaning our systems positively impact over 45,000 lives annually.

Our team is proud to be managing over 4MW (megawatts) of assets, but our goal is to manage GWs (gigawatts) and impact millions of lives. This means we have a long way to go in strengthening the local ecosystem to ensure last-mile solar providers can seamlessly transition and retain end consumers across Nigeria and Africa who seek to benefit from low-carbon technologies.

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2. Securing capital in ClimateTech often comes with unique challenges, from long technology development cycles to investor risk perceptions. What lessons have you learned about fundraising and attracting the right kind of capital for a sustainable scale?

Rotimi: For climate tech businesses, the first thing to realize is that, depending on your business model, you’ll need more debt than equity. However, it’s important to understand that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’s easy to put together a presentation showing how and why lenders will support your effort to achieve this noble, sustainability-focused ambition. While that may be true, it will take significant time to unlock the scale of debt support you need. The capital is available in the market, and help will eventually arrive, but first, you must consistently nail the commercial and economic reasons why they should support this effort.

The second point is that climate tech is not going to get a free pass - entrepreneurs in this space need to deliver strong commercial returns to gain continued support in achieving sustainability goals. A focus on strong commercial fundamentals and building sustainable businesses helps unlock more debt to solve the sustainability challenges we are addressing. It’s a virtuous cycle that we must take ownership of.

The third point is that you must have strong portfolio monitoring and operations capable of translating information into trend-based metrics that lenders and equity investors need to see in order to support the impact you are unlocking. It’s also important to understand that, while impact goals may be similar, equity investors and debt investors prioritize different metrics. Additionally, equity investors will usually want to know what lenders care about. This is because most climate tech businesses require debt to scale, so equity investors need to be confident that you can unlock the necessary debt to achieve both financial and impact goals.

Another lesson is that the strength of your team and risk management capabilities heavily affect portfolio performance. Choose your team and build capabilities wisely. Also, pay attention to the efficiencies AI can introduce early on - these can create new efficiences that were previously impossible.

I could share more lessons, but I’ll end by emphasizing the importance of keeping investors informed. There will be moments when this becomes more challenging, but you must find ways to communicate. It’s easier for investors to rally around you during tough times when they know what’s happening.

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3. Your platform leverages models like lease-to-own and subscriptions to address technical and credit risks. How have these financing solutions improved accessibility and affordability for solar energy, and what impact have you seen so far?

Rotimi: We believe that less than 2% of Nigerians and many Africans can access solar systems by paying cash upfront. This is not just a Nigerian or African problem; in most developed markets, solar adoption is scaling due to asset financing solutions. The market potential remains capped without access to affordable, flexible financing for solar and low-carbon technologies.

Nigeria, in particular, is a lower-middle-income country. If financing has been critical to scaling solar penetration in developed markets, how much more important is it in Nigeria and across many parts of Africa? For our part, we have seen solar partners more than double their sales when they can access asset financing to support solar adoption for consumers.

But more needs to be done. While asset financing helps make solar solutions more accessible, high interest costs have a counteractive effect, as Nigerians are often wary of financial obligations - especially those with high rates. Cash-based transactions will remain a feature for some time, but adoption will increase at the pace of the price efficiency of solar equipment and interest rates.

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4. How do you envision the evolution of solar financing and access in the coming years?

Rotimi: Solar financing will become easily accessible for end consumers and will be distributed through a vast number of channels beyond banks and traditional financial institutions. Partnerships between financial partners and distributors will ensure wide distribution of solar financing. This is going to be a necessary condition to enable the transition from generators to solar and low-carbon tech. 

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Rotimi Thomas is the CEO and Co-Founder of SunFi.co. Before SunFi, He co-founded and helped build Aspire Power Solutions, a Solar Installation and Services company that has executed over 500 Solar Installations across Nigeria. He previously worked for Siemens till December 2018 as the Head of Market Development, Sub Saharan Africa, Gas to Power group. Before that, Rotimi was a Development Fund Investment Manager with Siemens’ Gas to Power group where he invested in and developed power projects for Siemens in North America and Africa. Prior to this, he worked on Microgrids and hybrid renewable energy systems for Siemens in North and South America and joined Siemens in 2013 through the company’s Finance Excellence Program (CFO training program) in the Energy Transmission & Distribution business unit.

He completed his Master in Business Administration (MBA) and Master in Environmental Management (MEM) at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business and Nicholas School of Environment in 2013. During his MBA/MEM, Rotimi worked as a Renewable Energy Consultant for Walt Disney and as a Leadership Development Associate at Constellation Energy in Risk Management.