• Two of Africa’s leading energy technology companies are joining forces to help drive the digitization of Africa’s power grids and unlock more reliable, productive power.

• The merger occurs alongside a new funding round led by Equator VC and with participation from Praetura Ventures and KawiSafi Ventures.

• Advanced metering technology will transform Africa's electricity industry by providing real-time monitoring, accurate billing, and enhanced energy management.

London/ Houston/ Lagos – [November 4, 2024] In a landmark move to revolutionize Africa’s energy sector, SteamaCo, a UK-based leader in energy revenue management, has merged with Shyft Power Solutions, a Nigerian innovator in digital energy solutions that gained popularity recently with its community-metering solutions. The merger occurs alongside a new funding round led by Equator VC and with participation from Praetura Ventures and KawiSafi Ventures, who collectively bring together decades of experience investing in African and climate-tech ventures.

The merger unites two pioneers in advanced metering solutions, paving the way for rapid expansion into the grid-connected market and increased customer reach. SteamaCo has over a decade of experience providing advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) to energy companies across 20 African countries, transforming the energy sector with features like AI-driven loss detection for major power companies, including Aba Power. Its flagship product, Nimbus AMI, helps energy companies manage their networks, detect losses, and enhance customer service. Shyft Power Solutions entered the Nigerian market nearly eight years ago with its cloud-based distributed energy resource management system and diesel management solutions, introducing its latest metering solution, FlexView, which offers enhanced reliability and allows energy consumers to monitor usage in near real-time, eliminating the need for tokens.

The merger of SteamaCo and Shyft comes at a pivotal moment. Recent regulatory changes have opened up new investment opportunities for independent power producers (IPPs) and utilities, particularly in grid intelligence and metering. With rising energy costs, there is a growing need for reliable power. Globally, over a billion people lack adequate access to quality power. In Nigeria, approximately half of the country’s 220 million population is connected to the national grid, which currently cannot meet daily energy demand. Even those connected to the grid frequently experience blackouts, forcing them to rely on expensive and polluting alternatives. Distributed energy resources like solar home systems and mini-grids are essential solutions to address this energy access crisis. But this is changing, and the emerging SteamaCo entity is committed to playing a pivotal role in helping power companies, both on and off grid, leverage data-driven solutions to foster operational efficiency, streamlined revenue management, and mitigate downtime.

“Our vision goes beyond delivering cutting-edge technology; it’s about transforming the energy experience of power providers and their consumers. Alongside our customers, we can leapfrog inefficient grids and build more intelligent, resilient infrastructure. Power plays a critical role in economic advancement and enabling sustainable cities, so catalyzing digital transformation with our solutions is a part of our overall commitment to enabling smart cities and sustainable communities.” stated Shyft’s CEO, Ugwem Eneyo.

Tom Parkison, MD of SteamaCo, commented, “This merger greatly boosts our ability to grow in African markets. By combining our advanced metering technology with Shyft’s local expertise, we can better meet our customers' specific needs. Together, we will foster innovation, improve our services, and provide effective, customized solutions to Africa's energy issues.”

“This merger represents a pivotal moment in the evolution of energy management across Africa”, said Nijhad Jamal, Managing Partner of Equator. “We are creating a powerhouse capable of addressing critical energy challenges. This integration will enhance the sector’s ability to deliver reliable, smart metering solutions and drive significant progress in closing the energy access gap in Africa.”

The executive management teams of SteamaCo and Shyft Power Solutions will remain in place, and job creation is anticipated. This merger also represents a significant milestone for Shyft, a female-founded and led African deep-tech start-up, as, according to data from the Africa: The Big Deal database, only 13% of venture capital in Africa goes to female founders. The combined entity will result in a predominantly female African management team.

—-

About SteamaCo

SteamaCo is an Anglo-African technology company that empowers energy providers to deliver reliable, productive, and affordable power to communities in emerging markets. Utilizing cutting-edge IoT and interoperable smart metering solutions, SteamaCo enables remote monitoring and control of distributed energy systems, ensuring efficient and scalable energy access. With a mission to bridge the energy gap for underserved populations, SteamaCo is committed to driving sustainable development by making electricity accessible to millions.

With a presence in over 20 countries, a network of local and international partners, and a growing reputation for helping companies digitize their utility operations, SteamaCo is well-positioned for the next steps in its growth journey.

About Shyft

Shyft Power Solutions is an energy technology company that develops IoT (internet-of-things) hardware and integrated software to manage energy services intelligently. From novel turnkey metering solutions to patented monitoring and control solutions, Shyft is dedicated to delivering exceptional energy experiences and solving real energy challenges.

About Equator

Equator is a venture capital firm with teams in Nairobi, Lagos, London, and Colorado that targets technology-enabled, early-stage ventures in energy, agriculture and mobility that are accelerating an equitable climate transition in Sub-Saharan Africa and supporting inclusive economic growth.

LAGOS, April 8, 2021 - SHYFT Power Solutions, which builds IoT and software to optimize distributed energy resource performance and operational efficiency in emerging markets, has announced an additional $3.1M in funding to bring its total seed round to $3.8M. The round was led by the SoftBank Vision Fund’s Emerge Program and Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures with participation from other investors including Lofty Inc, Samurai Ventures and Urban US Ventures. 

Nearly 3.5 billion people lack access to reliable power. In many emerging markets, this has resulted in widespread dependence on back-up power systems like petrol or diesel generators. SHYFT was founded by Stanford engineers to address the challenges in delivering and scaling clean, reliable, and affordable energy solutions in emerging markets that struggle with unreliable grids or energy access.  SHYFT’s initial focus is in Nigeria, a country set to be the 3rd most populous only to China and India, but where an unreliable grid has led to widespread dependence on generators, accounting for nearly 8x the capacity of the grid. 

SHYFT is pioneering the digitization of the energy landscape in emerging markets like Nigeria. Its asset management solution delivers an integrated approach that uses algorithms to monitor, automate, and optimize how assets, as well as grid connections, are utilized individually and as an integrated system, aggregating a plurality of data streams while doing so. By increasing visibility and control the system helps users to make informed decisions about which sources they use, how long they use a source, and when they switch sources. This enables operators to scale distributed systems in a cost-effective way, particularly in remote markets. It has resulted in operators improving RoI, reducing emissions, mitigating downtime, and reducing operational costs, in some cases by up to 57%. 

“I was an engineering graduate student at Stanford at a time when solar was reaching grid parity and we were seeing advancement in distributed energy technologies. As a Nigerian-American with previous experience in infrastructure, I recognized that emerging markets have a unique opportunity to leapfrog over centralized grids and leverage advancements in clean, reliable and affordable alternatives to meet energy needs and at times work alongside centralized grids too”, said Co-Founder & CEO Ugwem Eneyo. “I founded SHYFT to build the technology that can enable and accelerate this transition, and ensure that on the path to reliable energy access, the use of cleaner solutions can mitigate carbon emissions as well. We are fortunate to have investors supporting us where their sector and global experience will be invaluable”.

SoftBank Vision Fund’s Emerge Program was established in 2019 to provide select startups with access to the tools, networks, and support to take their business to the next level. Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures is focused on finding, funding, and fostering high-potential startups which will contribute to creating a low carbon future.

With the new round of funding, SHYFT plans to more than double its team in West Africa over the next year with a focus on developing AI capabilities to use its data and algorithms for system optimization. SHYFT will also look to build out corporate partnerships and expand to additional African markets facing similar energy resiliency and access challenges. 

SHYFT’s customers and strategic partners include some of the largest and fastest-growing alternative energy companies in Nigeria, including Daystar Power Solutions and Aspire Power Solutions. After passing critical IEC safety testing for their controllers, the company began ramping up sales across Nigeria over the past year with their customers. Today, they have over 2,000 kW of assets being managed by SHYFT technology and expect that to increase ten-fold by the end of 2021. Nearly every major bank in Nigeria has a branch using SHYFT technology, creating a path for SHYFT and its customers to deliver reliable power to the nearly 5,000 branches in the market.    

Ademidun Edosomwan, Managing Director, Emerging Markets at Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures (TCNV), said: "Energy is an essential need for all, yet it is estimated that more than 3.5 billion people globally lack access to affordable and reliable electricity. SHYFT’s technology will play a critical role in a global movement to democratize the way people manage their power sources. They've developed data-driven software that enables homeowners and businesses in emerging markets to make smarter decisions on their energy use in order to cut costs and reduce emissions. We are delighted to support SHYFT’s momentum as Ugwem and the team continue to expand their impact and help build a better energy future for the world."

Interactive Dashboard

FILTER THROUGH THE NOISE
Easily visualize the status of your sites with the dynamic List View or Map View which allows you to filter the map and the icons based on parameters like connectivity, alerts, SHYFT STS operating status or fuel level.

Customizable Alerts

GET THE REAL-TIME UPDATES THAT YOU NEED
View customizable System Alerts across your portfolio that include severity levels and the ability to filter, search and sort by a variety of parameters including site name, asset type, severity and time of occurrence.

Easy Access to Site Snapshots

DRILL DOWN WITH RICH INSIGHTS
Quickly gather information about a site and its asset with a simple click. With the Snapshot Panel, you’ll be able to gather details like Recent Events, Alerts or Alarms or custom parameters your team has assigned. You can still navigate to the Site Detail page for additional details.

Custom Fields

MAKE YOUR DASHBOARD TRULY YOURS
Your team can now create Custom Fields that can appear on your dashboard. For example, you can create a field like field personnel assigned to the site or data about the site, its assets or details that are unique to your organization.

---

*Note: Customers with a SHYFT Connect web app subscription can launch the app via the banner on the top of your current dashboard. However, the old version of the SHYFT Connect dashboard will sunset on April 3rd and all eligible users will be fully migrated to the updated dashboard.

As the use of IoT increases in markets like Nigeria, intermittent power and intermittent connectivity can cause the reliability of the technology and the associated data into question. This greatly reduces the value that these solutions are intended to deliver. However, the SHYFT system has been specially designed to handle these challenging ecosystems, and the benefits of this design were put on clear display last week.
 
On January 22nd, around 6:30pm Lagos time, a major mobile carrier's network became completely unavailable for nearly six hours. Approximately half of the SHYFT fleet was connected to this network.While interruptions are common, six hours is longer than what SHYFT's system typically record.
 
Although these situations typically lead to data loss in most industrial IoT systems, an impact assessment of the outage after the fact revealed that 100% of the expected energy data had been collected and transmitted for all SHYFT users and units remained locally operational while SHYFT’s team monitored the systems during the prolonged unavailability of a major network.
This is just one brief example of the power of SHYFT's cutting edge platform to ensure data accuracy and completeness, and to bring added value to customer systems; an area where other solutions consistently fall short.
 
At SHYFT, we obsess over our data collection mechanisms, and constantly review and refine our products in order to bring SHYFT customers the highest level of value possible; because -- regardless of the stability of cellular networks or the electricity grid -- our customers deserve nothing less.

Meghan McCormick with Forbes Women recently interviewed Ugwem Eneyo, highlighting her background, women in tech and the energy challenges of Nigeria.

While the energy challenges in the U.S. Midwest appear quite different from those of Nigeria, a common challenge exists: the increasing use of distributed energy resources (DERs) like solar and batteries. Stakeholders in both markets are exploring technologies that can provide better insight, analytics, and control of these resources. As part of their collaboration with Capital Innovators, University of Missouri St. Louis, Ameren invested in SHYFT Power Solutions and selected SHYFT Power Solutions to participate in their technical accelerator, during which SHYFT will be working alongside a team of Ameren technical experts. SHYFT Power Solutions continues to focus on the Nigerian market but will be conducting R&D with the support of Ameren as we advance our analytics, data services and the role SHYFT can play in improving grid resiliency.

Solstice was selected as a finalist for the California Climate Cup, conducted by the California Clean Energy Fund and the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI). Over 100 companies worlwide had applied with finalist from around the world attending. After pitching at LACI, Solstice also presented at the Coal+Ice Events in San Francisco, where former Vice President Al Gore spoke just after. They also presented at Lyft Headquarters, where panelist from the public and private sector discussed the importance of sustainability. The final announcement of the Cup winner was made on the main stage at the Global Climate Action Summit on Friday, September 15th in San Francisco.

Solstice was selected out of 142 companies (filtered down to 30 finalists) to present at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Industry Growth Forum from May 2-4th in Denver, Colorado.  After presenting their latest innovation, SHYFT, Solstice won the Most Outstanding Venture Overall and the Best Venture for Emerging Markets. With key leaders from across the cleantech ecosystem, this external validation and opportunity was an exciting milestone for the team.

In April the technical team deployed several new devices that are in development, across the Lagos area. The deployment is part of an effort to secure high-resolution data on grid performance and user behavioral patterns that enable Solstice proprietary software to deliver intelligence that users have not had to date. 

The Solstice team has a new set-up for Silicon Valley-based stakeholders who are interested in learning more about our technology. The facility also provides the Oakland-based technical team a site to do further product development and testing. If you're interested in visiting the site, contact us at info@solstice.io.