South African company, The Sun Exchange, been named the top blockchain and Bitcoin company in Africa at the Finance Africa Conference in Johannesburg.
The Sun Exchange is a crowdfunding platform that fundraises for solar projects on the African continent utilizing Blockchain and Bitcoin. Initially the company was shortlisted in the top three fintech companies in Africa out of 100. Over an 18-month rigorous judging process, the company was then selected to pitch their business to a panel of judges at the Finance Africa Conference.
Morwesi Ramonyai, chief commercial officer of The Sun Exchange, presented the company’s model and structure that is based on a crowd-funding marketplace where people can purchase solar cell or panel assets and have them deployed in technically validated commercial projects in the sunniest locations on earth, Africa.
Solar assets purchased through The Sun Exchange are leased to various end users, earning revenue in real time for the solar equipment owners wherever they are in the world.
After this tough pitching competition against the best on the continent, The Sun Exchange was named the Best Blockchain and Bitcoin company in Africa 2016. This award is a significant recognition of the great work that The Sun Exchange is doing on the continent, as Morwesi Ramonyai explains: “We are very excited about this award as it will increase our profile and thereby our ability to do more and continue to electrify Africa, which desperately needs electricity for development.”
The Sun Exchange’s innovative model is a win-win for everyone, from the crowd-sourced investors to the communities served. The Sun Exchange hosts the fund-raising, arranges a solar equipment lease, and then manages the revenue collection and distribution through its Blockchain based system. In order to make investing in these solar cells or panels available to everyone the project accepts Bitcoin, as the international transferring of currency between countries is often expensive and time consuming.
After each project is fully funded, it will be installed and then the lease associated with those solar cells/panels will earn the investor on-going income for the life of the project.
The founder of The Sun Exchange, Abe Cambridge, has been a solar energy entrepreneur for nearly 10 years, and when he first arrived in South Africa he worked as a lenders technical advisor to banks investing in large-scale solar projects participating in the REIPP project. He is an expert in identifying, evaluating and mitigating risks of solar projects.
Morwesi is an impact entrepreneur who develops off-grid solar PV projects and has a passion for economic inclusion of rural communities in renewable energy mini grids.
Additionally The Sun Exchange is promoting SolarCoin, a digital token freely granted for each megawatt-hour of clean solar energy generated.
The Sun Exchange is posed to increase its solar footprint across Africa.
