South African buy-to-lease solar marketplace Sun Exchange has further added to its seed round by raising US$260,000 from US-based private impact investors, and is targeting closing at up to US$3 million by the end of July.
Sun Exchange leverages cryptocurrency to allow users across the world to buy into solar projects and receive income from the power generated by the projects.
The startup has been on the fundraising trail of late as it looks to expand its operations, with Disrupt Africa reporting in October of last year it had received a US$500,000 seed investment from Alphabit, a multi-million-dollar hedge fund.
As part of the same round, it has now raised a further US$260,000 from some private impact investors, and chief executive officer (CEO) Abraham Cambridge told Disrupt Africa more is expected in the next few weeks.
“We are still targeting up to a US$3 million raise, which we are going to conclude at the end of July,” he said.
In addition to its seed round, Sun Exchange also raised US$1 million from sales of its SUNEX digital rewards token, though this was some way short of its original target of US$5.4 million.
The startup, which has built a global community of over 14,000 members across 130 countries, introduced SUNEX, its own digital rewards token, in April of last year with the goal of raising US$5.4 million.
The initial coin offering (ICO) concluded in January, with Sun Exchange ultimately allocating 28,485,478 SUNEX tokens, the equivalent of US$1,068,205. The startup thanked everyone who had participated in the sale, and said the failure to meet the original target was related to “increasingly challenging ICO market conditions.”
