TORONTO – Solar Panda, a young Canadian company providing solar home systems to off-grid homes in Africa, was ranked the 3rd fastest growing company in Canada in 2021 by Report on Business Magazine, a publication of Canada’s newspaper of record, the Globe and Mail. It earned its spot with three-year revenue growth of 10,465%!
Solar Panda was founded by Andy Keith, a serial entrepreneur in the renewable energy sector. Solar Panda started selling in Kenya in 2017 and has since rocketed to become a leader in the industry. It provides systems to over 160,000 homes, bringing light to 800,000 Kenyans. These systems transform lives by displacing toxic kerosene lanterns; giving children light to study by; providing access to entertainment and information; and making virtually all daily tasks easier.
“We’re honoured to be recognized and included on this distinguished list,” says Andy Keith, CEO. “I’m in awe of the growth our team has achieved, especially with the challenges Covid threw at us. There are still nearly a billion people globally without access to electricity, so we are just getting started!”
In the past 4 years, Solar Panda has grown to a company with 250 employees (54% women), 750 sales agents and 30 stores across Kenya. Since launching, Solar Panda has been focused on sustainable growth and was profitable prior to the pandemic, a feat which has eluded most companies in this nascent sector.
“The pandemic will have an outsized impact in developing countries with slow access to vaccines and fragile economies”, says Andy. (Fewer than 2% of people in sub-Saharan Africa are vaccinated.) “However, I’m confident they will recover, and Africa will get back to being the fastest growing region in the world.”
While Kenya weathers Covid, Solar Panda is doing everything it can to stay the course by making its products more affordable for financially-strapped families. It also launched a not-for-profit educational initiative to help Kenyan children study when schools shut down.
Solar Panda is raising its first round of external equity to support its growth plans as economies recover and help manage the challenges of the pandemic. It is seeking a mission-aligned investor who recognizes the large business opportunity and is passionate about ending the injustice that a billion people still lack access to electricity.
