A clean energy finance vehicle enabling distributed solar adoption through innovative PAYG (Pay-As-You-Go) financing. Features credit risk assessment, consignment inventory models, automated commission structures, and integrated investor reporting with ESG tracking — creating scalable investment opportunities in Africa's energy transition.
Investment Case
The Problem
Kenya has massive solar potential but adoption is hampered by high upfront costs, fragmented distribution channels, and lack of consumer trust in product quality. Rural customers can't access financing, and solar distributors lack a unified platform to manage inventory, partners, and payments.
Existing e-commerce solutions don't support PAYG financing models, multi-vendor commission structures, or the KYC requirements of Kenya's energy sector regulations.
The Solution
TLC Solar Marketplace provides a complete e-commerce experience tailored to solar product distribution. Customers browse verified products, calculate PAYG financing plans, and pay via M-Pesa. Partners onboard through KYC verification, manage consignment inventory, and receive automated commission payouts.
The admin dashboard provides real-time visibility into inventory levels, partner performance, revenue by product category, and customer acquisition funnels — all without leaving the browser.
Features
Tech Stack
Responsive multi-page PWA with Bootstrap 5, role-based views, and offline-first browsing capability.
M-Pesa Daraja API for payment processing with Africa's Talking SMS gateway for transactional notifications.
PAYG credit modeling engine, automated commission calculation, consignment reconciliation, and multi-role access control.
Progressive Web App with Service Worker for offline access, background sync, and installable homescreen experience.
Challenges & Learnings
Each product has different margins, warranty periods, and default risk profiles. Building a flexible credit engine that administrators could configure without code changes required careful abstraction.
Automated commission payouts across dozens of partners with different rate tiers, consignment balances, and payment schedules required robust transaction logging and audit trails.
Many customers browse products in areas with intermittent connectivity. Service Worker caching strategies had to balance freshness with availability for product catalog and pricing data.