For Investors
Fostering Paygo business models to provide credit to the world’s unbanked
Mission Statement
Solaris Offgrid started its activities in 2014, developing solutions for the world's unbanked to access credit towards essential needs and solar energy products. Overall, Solaris Offgrid is exclusively committed to essential services access and finance inclusiveness of the poorest since its early beginning, focusing its R&D efforts on technologies enabling local distributors to provide greater access to basic amenities.
Problem
1.7 billion adults in the world remain unbanked, thus limiting their ability to access affordable life-changing amenities and to escape poverty. With digital finance innovations such as mobile money and "pay-as-you-go" (Paygo) technologies in the fields of energy, water supply, or even agriculture, millions of people at the Bottom-of-the-Pyramid are now able to access essential services through affordable financial transactions.
While the Paygo model has already proven to be an impactful payment collection method for off-grid technologies to bring a greater access to energy in developing countries, some key challenges remain to enable companies to deliver essential services to the poor, in profitable and sustainable ways.
Providing an interoperable and open ecosystem with robust IT infrastructures and software solutions to facilitate the adoption of Paygo products will help accelerate rural or low-income communities' access to life-changing amenities such as energy, water supply, health, or digital services.
Business Model
Solaris Offgrid expands through commercial partnerships with local and established distributors as well as manufacturers, providing them the Software Technology and Product Consulting Services they need to scale their operations and run them sustainably, with the aim of positively impacting millions of people at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Its flagship product PaygOps is a B2B SaaS fintech/IoT software which connects energy and utility appliances (solar home systems, water-pumps, cookstoves, smart meters, e- bikes...), payment methods (mobile money) to a suite of enterprise applications (SaaS) or to API services (PaaS) which allows the smooth management of Pay-as-you-go (Paygo) lease financing and field operations, while providing key financial data and metrics to investors into this market.
Competitive Advantage
Interoperability
Solaris Offgrid SaaS Solution PaygOps is recognised for its leadership in terms of interoperability, lowering lock-in strategies that have been the main standard carried by other services in the sector. Through the development of open source technologies and the ability to adapt to distribution processes, ecosystems of products and Apps, PaygOps facilitates both the adoption of PAYGO products and profitability for last-mile distributors.
Flexibility
Solaris Offgrid supports its ecosystem of partners with customisable solutions and designs processes aligned with the specifics of different business models.
Bottom-up design
PaygOps software was created as a result of Solaris Offgrid first-hand-experience with last-mile distribution of SHS in Tanzania and other regions in Eastern Africa, installing more than 4000 SHS ourselves and experiencing, first-hand, the struggle and challenges of Paygo distribution and challenges of connectivity and decision making.
Our team
Siten Mandalia
Co-Founder & CEO
MEng. MBA Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Design course, Imperial College.
10 years experience in start-ups developing renewable and energy access solutions.
Benjamin David
Co-Founder & CTO
MSc. UPMC. MSc. Science Po., BSc. UCL.
10 years experience developing robotics and energy metering hardware.
Thibault Lesueur
Co-Founder & CMO
M. Strategy, SKEMA BS, BSc. International Business, Neoma BS,
Over 3 years experience in consulting and 8 years in the paygo sector last-mile management and tech commercialisation.
Charlène Giraudier
Director of Customer Success
M. in Strategy Toulouse Business
School, INCAE
Over 6 years + experience in the
Consulting Industry, Former Country Director at Solaris Tanzania
Joao Magalhaes
Chief Operating Officer
MEng. Industrial Engineering and Management
3 years of experience in finance and energy access solutions
