- It was here that our mission was born
To solve one of the world's greatest problems, energy inequality.
ZOLA Electric, initially founded as Off Grid Electric by Xavier Helgesen, Erica Mackey, and Joshua Pierce, started in Tanzania, where the founders saw that both off-grid and on-grid communities depended on costly and harmful energy sources, such as diesel, kerosene, and lead-acid batteries. These inefficient backup systems restricted the social and economic progress of these communities.
Over time, ZOLA Electric has transformed from its roots as a hardware distribution company into the leading enterprise technology provider serving the energy access markets. ZOLA now focuses on delivering advanced technology platforms and solutions directly to integrator customers, helping energy providers deploy, manage, and optimize systems and their workforce on a large scale. With an expanded reach, ZOLA’s technology platform now drives our customers growth, efficiency and profitability by delivering power to over 3 million people and businesses across 10 countries on four continents.
Installations deployed
People with clean, reliable energy
Served across 4 continents
Hands-on experience
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Our journey:
From hardware to enterprise platform
Launched as “M-POWER” in Tanzania
Off-Grid Electric attracts first 1,000 customers by end of 2012.
SOLAR CITY joins the Board
ZOLA earns its first institutional funding in the pay-as-you-go solar sector.
ZOLA expands across Tanzania
ZOLA rapidly expands across Tanzania with over 10,000 customers choosing the company’s products.
ZOLA expands to Rwanda
ZOLA launches its solar home systems in Rwanda displacing kerosene, petrol and diesel cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
ZOLA expands to Ivory Coast
ZOLA and EDF Energy announce a joint venture to expand energy access in Ivory Coast.
Introduced ZOLA FLEX
FLEX launched as the best-in-class plug and play, pre-paid solar system. ZOLA closes a growth funding round led by Helios Partners and General Electric (GE).
Powering 1 Million lives
ZOLA continues its rapid growth and surpasses more than 1 million daily users.
ZOLA drives energy access through pandemic
ZOLA continues to ensure energy flows to its 1.5 million customers and introduces new products to address pandemic conditions
ZOLA becomes technology provider
ZOLA sells its West Africa integration JV to EDF, becoming exclusive technology supplier and converting to a pure play Energy Technology company sold to enterprise customers.
ZOLA introduces foundational elements of its enterprise platform
ZOLA launches its first generation enterprise platform into Africa, Asia and North America with With FLEX, FLEX MAX and an early version of ZOLA iNTELLIGENCE
ZOLA launches next generation enterprise platform with Zi, EDGE
ZOLA becomes full-fledged platform company sold BtoB with launch of Zi, Edge, B2B services across GTM, sales, technical and data. Gen1 Platform selling in over 10 Energy Access countries across 4 continents.
Meet our leaders
ZOLA Electric’s global leadership drives the strategic direction and operations of the organization.
Bill Lenihan
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Suresh Karri
VP Engineering
Mukul Kundu
VP Product
Johnson Kiwango
Managing Director, EA
