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BuffaloGrid announces £3.4m fundraise and reveals work with Airtel to bring free mobile phone power to rural India

BuffaloGrid

BuffaloGrid, the company on a mission to bring mobile power and internet to the next billion, announces its technology is now live in villages across rural India, bringing mobile charging to thousands of people who previously had limited access to electricity.

BuffaloGrid’s CEO Daniel Becerra also revealed the company has raised an additional £3.4m toincrease the sustainability and scalability of its solar-powered mobile power and internet technology.

With the introduction of a sub-$50 smartphones and widespread mobile network coverage acrossmost of the world, access to electricity is now the major blocker to people getting online. BuffaloGrid is solving this problem by working with organisations operating in off-grid communities to deploy its internet-enabled mobile charging system.

Over 1.2 billion people in the world live without access to electricity. This untapped market is estimated to be worth $2.8bn globally and $1.1bn in India alone. BuffaloGrid’s first focus is bringing its solar-powered community-based mobile charging technology to the 1,907,000 villages without power across in India, letting over 240 million Indians to access free mobile phone charging in their local stores.

One pilot of BuffaloGrid’s latest technology is being run with Airtel, one of India’s largest mobile network operators. Airtel is providing free mobile charging through BuffaloGrid Hubs to everyone who visits select stores in Uttar Pradesh, Northern India.

Another pilot is live with Sahaj eVillage has been running since early October. Sahaj eVillage is a retailer bridging the digital divide between urban and rural India. Both of these technology pilots are taking place in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh where Bloomberg reports under 50% of all homes are electrified.

Daniel Becerra, CEO of BuffaloGrid explains the purpose of these pilots: “While network coverage and data use across rural India is at an all-time high, power is still a major problem. Bringing power to these communities not only has a huge social impact but also presents a strong commercial case to businesses operating in these areas. This is something that was overlooked in the past. The organisations using our technology are already seeing how providing mobile charging in rural areas is helping to bring visitors into stores and increase the lifetime value of customers.”

The latest round of funding, led by Local Globe, saw first-time investments in the company from Hardware Club, ADV and Seedcamp totalling £1.8m. BuffaloGrid also secured £1.6m from the European Commission's H2020 Grant scheme. This brings total grants and investment secured by BuffaloGrid to £5.2m to date from the likes of Tiny VC, Unreasonable Impact and Microsoft’s Energy Access Initiative.

This investment is being used to scale up production of BuffaloGrid’s technology to deal with anticipated demand in 2019. Following successful pilots, enterprises can then choose to roll out hundreds more BuffaloGrid Hubs to their stores across India. Commenting on the latest round George Henry, Partner at Local Globe said.As soon as we met the BuffaloGrid team we were impressed by their ambitious vision and smart technology. Now we're committed to their mission to bring power and internet to the next billion. In the future, companies like BuffaloGrid have the potential to be seen alongside ISPs and MNOs as the providers of
next-generation connectivity. Their internet connected solar-powered BuffaloGrid Hub offers a scaleable solution to a global problem.

"Over the past year, we’ve watched the BuffaloGrid team grow to include experts in a range of disciplines, their technology is now live in the field and conversations with partners and customers continue at speed. This investment round comes at a key point in the company’s journey as its technology gains traction with major enterprises and thousands of people begin benefitting from free mobile phone charging in places where access to power was previously patchy or non-existent.

David Fogel, Investment Lead at ADV, said: “Power is at the heart of modern society. It’s a fundamental building block which allows people to use devices, enabling connectivity, commerce and human interaction. While developing countries now have access to low priced devices and some internet coverage, power is hard to come by. BuffaloGrid brings portable solar power to whole communities, keeping them connected to the rest of the planet and each other. The early backing by our friends at LocalGlobe was a great indication of the calibre of this team and the potential for them to be generation-defining.”

Tom Wilson, Partner at Seedcamp said “The team at BuffaloGrid are tackling one of the biggest problems in the world right now. Helping to accelerate internet adoption will have a significant impact on the global economy. It’s why we’ve backed them in the next stage of their journey to bring power and internet to the next billion people on earth” George Henry, Partner at Local Globe said: "As soon as we met the BuffaloGrid team we
were impressed by their ambitious vision and smart technology. Now we're committed to their mission to bring power and internet to the next billion. In the future, companies like BuffaloGrid have the potential to be seen alongside ISPs and MNOs as the providers of next-generation connectivity. Their internet connected solar-powered BuffaloGrid Hub offers a scaleable solution to a global problem.

"Over the past year, we've watched the BuffaloGrid team grow to include experts in a range of disciplines, their technology is now live in the field and conversations with partners and customers continue at speed. This investment round comes at a key point in the company's journey as its technology gains traction with major enterprises and thousands of people begin benefitting from free mobile phone charging in places where access to power was previously patchy or non-existent.

With these first commercial pilots now live across India, BuffaloGrid has further large-scale deployments planned in 2019 and expects over a million Indians to have used its technology by 2020. It then plans to explore further markets including countries across Sub-Saharan Africa and South America.

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