Profile
Daystar is a full-service commercial and industrial (C and I or C-I) solar company based in Lagos, Nigeria with clients across West Africa and East Africa. It was founded in 2017 by German nationals, Christian Wessels and Jasper Graf von Hardenberg.
Originally receiving its first external funding from the German Development Bank (DEG), in April 2019, Daystar Power announced that it has closed a $10M investment with Verod Capital Management in partnership with Persistent Energy Capital LLC. In addition to the fund, it also announced that it had lined up an additional $16M in debt financing for solar power expansion across West Africa.
In February 2020, Sunfunder announced that it had invested up to $4M in Daystar Power.
In January 12, 2021, Daystar Power announced that it had raised a Series B investment funding of $38M. It was led by the Danish Development Finance Institution (DFI), the Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU), STOA, Proparco and the French DFI. It was also backed by a guarantee from the European Union under the African Renewable Energy Scale-Up facility (ARE Scale-Up) and Morgan Stanley Investment Management. This took total equity investments in Daystar Power to $48M.
Daystar Power says it will use the funds to expand its operations in its key markets of Nigeria and Ghana while expanding in other regional markets like Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Togo.
Services and Products
A full-service energy company, Daystar Power will conduct a power audit, then submit a proposal to a client and afterwards design and install the system after which it will undertake the operation and maintenance of the system. Daystar Power uses solar and battery-storage systems in designing its power systems for its clients.
A commercial and industrial (C and I or C-I) company, Daystar Power provides its services for only commercial and large-scale industrial clients in the banking, power retail, agricultural and logistics industries. It offers power solutions ranging from 20kW to 5MW.
Daystar operates two business models:
Power as a Service (Paas)
In the Power as a Service (PaaS) model, Daystar Power would provide all the power used at a client’s site at a fixed service rate. Daystar Power uses both solar, hybrid, fossil-fuel and battery storage systems for this model. It provides this service to the banking, retail, agricultural and logistics industries. Daystar Power has undertaken projects in this model for Ecobank, Wema Bank, Unity Bank and Access Bank.
Solar as a Service (SaaS)
In the Solar as a Service (SaaS) model, Daystar Power would provide solar-generated power to clients at a per kWh price with a guaranteed initial off-take. It provides this service to large industrial clients. The SaaS is a 100% solar service.
After scaling through Endeavor’s international selection panel held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between February 10 and 12, 2020, Wessels and von Hardenberg become the 12th and 13th entrepreneurs to join Endeavor Nigeria. Daystar Power became the 8th company to enter Endeavor Nigeria’s portfolio, joining Paga, Carbon, AZA, HealthPlus, FilmHouse, Cars45 and Flutterwave. Full story here.
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