Koolboks raises $11 million to scale solar-powered refrigeration across Africa
The Lagos sun is unforgiving. For a fishmonger in Yaba, it means racing against the clock to sell her stock before the heat turns it into waste. For a roadside kiosk operator in Ibadan, it’s the expense of running a generator just to keep drinks cold. For a small rural clinic in Kano, it’s the anxiety of vaccine spoilage whenever the grid falters. Across Africa, cooling is not a luxury but a survival infrastructure, as critical as roads or clean water.
This is the world Koolboks has been quietly rewriting since its launch in 2018. The Nigerian startup, founded by Ayoola Dominic and Deborah Gael, builds solar-powered refrigerators that double as freezers, engineered to work even in areas with unreliable electricity. Their innovation isn’t just in solar panels; it’s in rethinking storage. Koolboks units use ice as a natural battery, allowing food, medicine, and beverages to stay cold for up to four days without power. In an environment where diesel is costly and erratic grids can collapse entire supply chains, that ice becomes an economic lifeline.
Now, investors are betting big. Koolboks has raised $11 million in Series A funding, led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, with participation from Aruwa Capital, GSMA Innovation Fund, Acumen Fund, and others. The raise comes after a $2.5 million seed round in 2022, which validated the company’s technology and opened doors for early expansion. This new capital, however, signals a different ambition: not just selling fridges, but building an industrial backbone for cooling in Africa.
At the heart of the plan is a local assembly plant in Nigeria, expected to reduce costs by as much as 20% while creating jobs and strengthening supply chains. By shifting from import-and-distribute to assemble-and-scale, Koolboks is moving closer to its mission of accessibility. For small business owners, price drops could mean the difference between profit and loss. For communities, it represents resilience built at home, not shipped from abroad.
WORTH A READ!
African-built Salus Cloud bags $3.7M to power secure software deployment for SMEs
The context makes the raise even more striking. Africa has long struggled with what development economists call the “cold chain gap.” The International Finance Corporation reports that nearly 40% of food produced in sub-Saharan Africa spoils before reaching consumers, largely due to inadequate refrigeration. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 25% of vaccines in low-income countries are wasted every year because of cold chain failures. These aren’t abstract statistics; they are daily realities that drive up costs, weaken public health, and cut into already fragile incomes.
Against this backdrop, Koolboks isn’t just a hardware company. It sits at the intersection of climate tech, healthcare, and financial inclusion. Many of its units are sold through a pay-as-you-go model, allowing micro-entrepreneurs — from fish sellers to shop owners — to finance fridges over time rather than paying upfront. The model mirrors the spread of mobile money: democratizing access by turning a lump-sum barrier into manageable payments.
It also helps that investors are waking up to the potential of climate-smart infrastructure. Global funding for climate adaptation technologies crossed $50 billion in 2024, according to BloombergNEF, with Africa beginning to attract a larger share. Koolboks is part of that momentum. Breakthrough Energy Ventures, founded by Bill Gates and backed by investors like Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, has increasingly looked to Africa for scalable solutions that blend sustainability with resilience.
But the competitive landscape is not without lessons. Jumia tried a form of cold chain-enabled e-commerce in the late 2010s but pulled back after losses. Multinationals like Haier and LG still dominate Africa’s appliance market, but their products often fail in rural contexts where electricity is patchy and incomes are unstable. Koolboks bet that a solution designed from the ground up for African realities, solar-driven, ice-storing, pay-as-you-go financed, can leapfrog the traditional model.
The funding also comes at a moment when demand is intensifying. Nigeria alone loses an estimated ₦3.5 trillion annually** to post-harvest food losses, according to the Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute. Meanwhile, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) notes that sub-Saharan Africa’s solar capacity has grown tenfold in the past decade, making distributed energy solutions like Koolboks more viable than ever.
For investors, Koolbok`s milestone reveals a market opportunity. Africa’s refrigeration market is projected to reach $10 billion by 2030, driven by rising urbanisation, a growing middle class, and global food safety demands. The path is wide open for companies that can solve the twin problems of cost and reliability.
Yet, challenges remain. Scaling manufacturing in Nigeria means navigating erratic infrastructure, import tariffs on components, and volatile currency risks. Consumer financing models, while democratising, depend on strong repayment systems and data discipline. And as with any Series A story, the pressure is on to turn investor optimism into operational proof.
Still, Koolboks raises $11m, and that embodies a shift in how African startups are positioning themselves. Rather than chasing apps or platforms built for quick exits, they are building physical infrastructure rooted in local pain points. It is less about blitzscaling and more about resilience. In Dominic’s words at the announcement, Koolboks is “not just about keeping things cold — it’s about keeping businesses alive, food safe, and communities healthy.”
The hum of a Koolboks fridge may sound ordinary, but in places where the sun has long been an enemy, it signals something profound: that prosperity, too, can be powered by the sun.
Do you have an innovative business (small, mid-scale business or startup) that adds value, creates opportunities or solves bold problems? Then you`ve got a story worth telling? Shoot us an email with the subject “Story Worth Telling (+Name of Business)” to [email protected]
