Cooling Africa's Food Crisis
Cooling Africa's Food Crisis w/ Ayoola Dominic
A strategic discussion on cold chain infrastructure, the promise of refrigeration, and Africa's 'cold rush'
Featured Speakers
Ayoola Dominic - Co-founder & CEO of Koolboks
Ayoola Dominic is the co-founder and CEO of Paris-headquartered Franco-Nigerian climatetech Koolboks, which has developed an off-grid, solar-powered unit that works as a refrigerator or freezer to provide small businesses in Nigeria and beyond with cold-storage solutions.
Previously, he was director of operations for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region at Servier. A pharmacist by training, he has worked in sales, marketing, and general management with companies such as Astrazeneca, Loreal, and Robert Walters. He speaks English, French, and Yoruba.
Moderated by: Emeka Ajene - Publisher, Afridigest
About the company
Founded in 2018, Koolboks has deployed over 10,000 solar freezers across 25 countries.
The company pivoted from its initial focus on European camping refrigerators to off-grid cooling solutions for African small businesses in 2020.
Koolboks’ IoT-enabled units provide four-day refrigeration without power, using solar energy and thermal storage, via a Pay-As-You-Go model with monthly payments of $10-20, primarily serving market women, food sellers, bars, and rural clinics.
The company just raised $11 million to scale its solar-powered, IoT-enabled refrigeration solutions across Africa and other emerging markets.
The Series A equity, debt, and grant financing round was led by KawiSafi Ventures and co-led by Aruwa Capital, with participation from All On and others.
Debt funding was secured from FFEM and bpifrance, with grants from FFEM/AFD, PREO, Efficiency for Access, and Innovate UK and results-based financing (RBF) from BGFA (Uganda), CEI Africa, and Shell Foundation.
📅 Date & Time: Friday, Sep. 5th at 2PM GMT +1
🌐 Format: Virtual
⏱️ Duration: 60 minutes
💰 Cost: Free
About the Hosts:
Afridigest - Ideas, analysis, and insights on modern business in Africa
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