Jibu franchises safe water businesses marketing bottled water in urban and peri-urban areas, equipping entrepreneurs with purification technology and business support.
Why we invested: We made an equity investment in Jibu under our previous strategy to fund the growth of its franchise model, proving that locally owned, commercial businesses can transform access to clean water.
Sonic Fresh began as an agricultural business in Kenya and expanded into water provision after drilling a borehole for their farm. What started as a single kiosk has grown into a network of five kiosks and over 150 household connections.
Why we invested: We provided initial grants and concessional loans to test how local entrepreneurs can expand into delivering professional water services and repay loans through household connections.
Uduma operates financially sustainable rural water systems, including piped networks, solar stations and hand pumps. They serve 1.5 million people across West Africa through private public partnerships contracts.
Why we invested: With our support Uduma is piloting household connection models in 2025, addressing adoption barriers and preparing for larger-scale expansion.
Water for Water is a Swiss non-profit founded in 2012 promoting the fair and sustainable use of water. They currently operate locally managed water systems for three towns in Zambia, improving household connections and operation and maintenance cost recovery at each station since their interventions started (in 2016 in Linda, 2023 in Pemba and Batoka).
Why we invested: We are supporting WfW to become a licensed operator in Southern Zambia where they aim to take on delegated management responsibilities for a cluster of seven towns, delivering clean, safe Water to the Home to over 8,000 households by 2027 through a solarised, sustainable model.
Safe Water Network operates locally managed water systems for underserved communities too small for utilities but too large for hand pumps. They have connected 1.7 million people globally.
Why we invested: We supported a $5 million pilot in Ghana to test the viability of the household-connection model. Following the success of this pilot, we made a further grant of $4.5 million to facilitate 11,000 new connections across 28 communities.