Koolboks, a Nigerian-founded startup providing solar-powered refrigerators on a pay-as-you-go basis, has raised $11 million in Series A financing. The funding round, split across equity, debt, and grants, will accelerate its expansion and support an assembly plant in Nigeria.
Founded by Ayoola Dominic and Deborah Gael, Koolboks began by redesigning coolers for camping, adding LED lights, USB ports, and speakers. The concept gained traction in Europe and the US, with products stocked at retailers like Carrefour.
The pandemic shifted their focus. Dominic realized the real demand was in Africa, where healthcare facilities struggled with vaccine and medicine storage. The team stripped down the design to create care boxes for medical use.
Today, Koolboks primarily serves small businesses such as traders, restaurants, and bars, where unreliable electricity makes cold storage expensive.
$11 Million Series A Funding
Koolboks’ latest round includes:
- $5 million equity led by KawiSafi Ventures, Aruwa Capital, and All On
- $2 million debt from bpifrance and FFEMGrants and results-based financing from Innovate UK, Efficiency for Access, Shell Foundation, and others
The funds will support Koolbuy, its buy-now-pay-later solution, and establish a local assembly plant in Nigeria to reduce costs for end users.
Pay-As-You-Go Refrigeration for Africa
Africa’s power deficit forces businesses to rely on costly diesel generators. Koolboks tackles this with solar-powered freezers offered on a pay-as-you-go or lease-to-own model.
Key features include:
- Freezers priced from $10 monthly for small businesses
- Lithium batteries for off-grid cooling
- IoT monitoring for usage, temperature, and predictive maintenance
- One engineer supporting 30 refrigerators remotely
With this model, Koolboks has deployed 10,000 freezers across 25 countries in seven years.
New Business Models: Koolbuy and Scrap4New
To scale faster, Koolboks introduced:
- Koolbuy: A BNPL platform offering cooling products with less than 3% non-performing loans.
- Scrap4New: Refurbishing old freezers with solar and IoT upgrades.
Partnerships with companies like Fan Milk and Coca-Cola are already underway to pilot large-scale adoption.
Growth, Profitability, and Challenges
- Koolboks employs 350 people worldwide, with 30% engineers.
- Nigeria is its largest market, generating 60% of revenues.
- The startup aims for profitability by 2027.
Dominic notes the biggest challenge lies in optimizing IoT monitoring, especially in low-bandwidth regions, but says the team is now positioned for scale.
With rising fuel costs and energy insecurity across Africa, Koolboks’ model offers a sustainable solution for food businesses, healthcare providers, and traders. Its combination of solar technology, IoT, and flexible financing makes it one of the most promising cleantech ventures on the continent.
