The archive · Money & Fintech · Product decision · 2011–2026
M-KOPA's pay-as-you-go bet: solar for off-grid Kenya, then 10M customers and first profit
M-PESA co-creator's 2011 bet: finance solar, phones, loans and insurance in daily micro-payments — 10M customers and a first profit by 2026.
M-KOPA
What the business is
M-KOPA is a Nairobi-born asset-financing platform that sells solar home systems, smartphones, cash loans and insurance to underbanked customers in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa, paid off in micro-instalments via mobile money.
Starting capital：Over $250M in equity and debt through 2023, including a May 2023 package of $200M in debt led by Standard Bank and $55M in equity led by Sumitomo Corporation
How it started
M-KOPA was founded in 2011 in Nairobi by Nick Hughes and Jesse Moore, colleagues from Vodafone; Hughes had created M-PESA, launched commercially in 2007. After announcing a partnership with Safaricom in October 2012, M-KOPA sold pay-as-you-go solar home systems through more than 300 Safaricom shops: customers paid a deposit, topped up days of credit by phone, and owned the system outright after roughly 12 months.
What happened
M-KOPA expanded from solar into smartphone financing (from 2019), then cash loans, insurance and merchant buy-now-pay-later, with an assembly plant in Nairobi. It raised $75M in equity in 2022 led by Generation Investment Management, then a $250M debt-equity package in May 2023 ($200M debt led by Standard Bank; $55M equity led by Sumitomo Corporation). By 2023 it had provided over $1B in cumulative credit to more than 3M customers across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana.
How it ended up
Still scaling: M-KOPA reported its first annual profit — KES 1.2B ($9.2M) for 2024, reversing a KES 3.2B ($24.7M) 2023 loss — on revenue up 66% to KES 53.7B ($416M). In July 2026 it said it serves 10M customers across five markets, onboarding about 10,000 a day via more than 40,000 sales agents.
Background
M-KOPA is an asset-financing startup founded in Nairobi in 2011 by Nick Hughes and Jesse Moore, former Vodafone colleagues; Hughes had built M-PESA, the mobile-money service launched commercially in 2007. Its first product was a pay-as-you-go solar home system: a customer paid a deposit, topped up days of credit by phone via M-PESA, and owned the panel outright after roughly 12 months. Hughes saw that low-income households were already spending $0.50–0.70 a day on kerosene and batteries, while M-KOPA's credit cost about $0.40 a day.
The bet scaled from solar to smartphones, cash loans, insurance and merchant buy-now-pay-later, powered by alternative-data underwriting. M-KOPA raised $75M in equity in 2022 (Generation Investment Management led), then a $250M debt-equity package in May 2023 — $200M in sustainability-linked debt led by Standard Bank, plus $55M in equity led by Sumitomo Corporation — bringing cumulative credit past $1B for more than 3M customers in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana.
After more than a decade of investment, M-KOPA reported its first annual profit: KES 1.2B ($9.2M) in 2024, reversing a KES 3.2B ($24.7M) loss, on revenue up 66% to KES 53.7B ($416M). In July 2026 it said it serves 10M customers across five markets, onboarding about 10,000 a day through more than 40,000 sales agents, with its Kenyan arm alone having extended $1.6B in credit.
What has to be true
- The wedge was price: solar credit at about $0.40/day cost less than the kerosene and batteries customers already bought, so adoption saved money from day one.
- Mobile money made micro-payments natural: M-PESA mirrored daily cash income, and the M2M lock in the device meant the hardware itself enforced repayment.
- M-KOPA expanded the same rails across products — phones, loans, insurance — so each financed device became a gateway to more of its digital finance stack.
- Discipline paid off: tightened underwriting, cost control and 50%+ average annual revenue growth took the company from a decade of losses to its first profit in 2024.
What can be applied
M-KOPA matched credit to how customers actually earn — daily micro-payments, not monthly salary — and let the hardware enforce repayment: M2M locks made default hard and ownership a savings milestone.
Aftermath
As of September 2026, M-KOPA serves 10M customers across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa, onboarding roughly 10,000 daily through its own 40,000+ agent network. Its Kenyan arm has extended over $1.6B in credit and Nigeria accounts for 1M+ customers and ₦231B ($170M) disbursed. After its first profit for 2024, M-KOPA is the reference point for whether Africa's pay-as-you-go and BNPL models can be self-sustaining, even as Sun King, d.light and EasyBuy crowd the same market.
Sources
- M-KOPA turns its first-ever profit as revenue surges 66% to $416m
- M-KOPA reaches 10 million customers, six years after its first million
- M-KOPA raises $250m to scale consumer fintech across Africa
- M-Kopa raises $75m in equity funding and targets expansion
- A Look at M-KOPA: An interview with Nick Hughes
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