- InspiraFarms Cooling, a Kenyan-based cooling solutions provider, has secured a $1.09 million (€1 million) investment to support its off-grid energy cold storage projects across Africa.
- Investors include the Foundation for Clean Energy and Energy Inclusion for Africa (CEI Africa), KawiSafi, and Factor[e].
- The investment comes a month after InspiraFarms Cooling secured $5.4 million (€5 million) from InfraCo Africa in 2023 to pilot its ‘Cooling-as-a-Service’ model and scale its solutions across Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Ghana. It also completed its series B round in 2020.
- InspiraFarms said the investment would also help to access more capital via crowdfunding for energy-efficient cold chain infrastructure.
InspiraFarms Cooling, founded in 2012, aims to reduce food waste and empower rural communities. It provides agribusinesses with pre-cooling and cold chain technology services to reduce costs and extend the shelf life of food.
Only about 5% of fresh produce enters the cold chain in Africa, resulting in a 30-50% loss. Consequently, InspiraFarms provides temperature-controlled warehouses, packhouses, slaughterhouses, cold rooms, precoolers, freezers, and long-term potato storage for this problem.
The company claims that its products are compatible with renewable energy sources and that some can run entirely off the grid. Besides, the technology behind these products allows for up to 25% energy savings.
InspiraFarms Cooling says it serves food distributors, exporters, agribusinesses, and third-party logistics with hundreds of units operating in fifteen countries.
InspiraFarms' CEO, Julian Mitchell, stated that the company will continue to focus on designing, developing, installing, servicing, and financing energy-efficient cooling.
CEI Africa's investment in InspiraFarms Cooling marks its first under the Foundation's Crowdfunding window. InfraCo Africa's investment in the company in 2023 will also be its first in 'first-mile' cold storage, according to Omar Jabri, InfraCo Africa's Head of Business Development.
In November 2023, InspiraFarms announced it was in talks to acquire Celtics Cooling's African business to gain a sizable portion of the African market. It planned to incorporate the Celtic businesses into its current infrastructure in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Kenya.
