As South Africa cautiously steps into the era of energy liberalisation, Cape Town-based startup Open Access Energy OAE is positioning itself as the connective tissue between a crumbling monopoly and a more decentralised, digital future.
The company just secured USD 1.8 M in oversubscribed seed funding from climate-focused investors E3 Capital, Equator VC, and Factore Ventures.
Its a follow-up to last year when the company secured a USD 750 K investment from Factore Ventures, marking the initial tranche of a USD 1.5 M seed round. That round has now hit an oversubscribed close.
Interestingly, OAE is not a solar panel maker or a battery manufacturer but a software company. And in a country where policy shifts are finally allowing private generation and trading to gain momentum, OAE is pursuing a simple approach.
Their play is to build the digital rails that let energy flow efficiently from producers to consumers, bypassing legacy bottlenecks.
