Schneider Electric Energy Access Asia (SEEAA), an impact fund managed by Schneider Electric, an energy management and automation company, along with Spark+ Africa Fund closes US$3.75M Series A in ATEC to support global expansion across Asian and African markets for its market-leading IoT electric stoves.
Other institutional investors in the round include DRW, Save the Children Global Ventures, Kibo Investments, and iDE. SEEAA is a €21M investment vehicle managed by Schneider Electric to invest in early-stage clean energy ventures in South and Southeast Asia.
Gilles Vermot Desroches, Senior Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at Schneider Electric and President of SEEAA, stated that “We are thrilled to support ATEC in their growth, accelerating social impact for rural and low-income households and reducing carbon emissions. We believe that their ability to combine IoT, ensure data accuracy, and utilize carbon finance will be instrumental in democratizing access to clean cooking.”
ATEC’s proprietary stove produces data-verifiable and auditable carbon credits, which resolves the majority of the current over-crediting issues currently holding back the voluntary and compliance cookstove carbon markets.
“ATEC will expand its partnerships with last-mile distributors and carbon buyers across Asia & Africa,” says ATEC Co-Founder and Chief Executive officer (CEO) Ben Jeffreys, “With ATEC’s ultimate goal of being the technology that empowers 800 million women across the Global South to not only play an active role in reducing climate change but turn it into an income.”
Since 2019, ATEC has been leading the sector in technology for decarbonizing cooking and was recognised by UC Berkeley as 1 of 5 globally recommended cookstove carbon projects. As carbon markets move further towards compliance and accountability, technology that can provide 100% auditable data to verify their claims will be key to unlocking markets in Africa & Asia.
“Given greater rates of electrification and improving grid/mini-grid reliability in many African countries, electricity is a clean, modern cooking option for a growing number of consumers,” says Spark+ Investment Directors Peter George & Xavier Pierluca, “With the integration of IoT technology, the upfront and ongoing barriers to electric cooking will significantly decline and we are confident ATEC is well-positioned to be one of the leading companies in this emerging space.”
With this Series A, ATEC will also continue its core investment in R&D – in particular, the latest developments in IoT and Web 3.0 and bringing these benefits to households in the Global South. Within the next decade, ATEC plans to generate 10 Gigawatt Hours of decarbonized cooking per day in households across the Global South. This will reduce carbon emissions of up to 10 million tons per year – the equivalent of driving 2.4 million petrol cars for one year. In addition to the positive climate impact, the removal of smoke from cooking with wood will have significant health outcomes for women and children.
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