A Passionate ‘Angel Investor” Turns Clean-power Champ
No one sounds more amazed about his career path than Anthony Osijo himself. He was a career banker living in Hong Kong when friends from university pitched their new utility startup called Bboxx.
“I was an angel investor,” laughs Osijo from his London home office. Now, as Chief Financial Officer of Bboxx, it’s Osijo’s job to successfully steer the utility from startup to profitable scale-up company.
Understatedly, Osijo explains, “There’s a huge difference. As a startup, we must focus on surviving. As a scale-up, we must grow and become profitable.”
Ending energy poverty
The award-winning company’s mission is to end energy poverty in developing countries, like Rwanda, Nigeria, and Mali. Bboxx manufactures, distributes, and finances solar powered electricity for nearly 30 million people, in accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
It is an incredibly ambitious, arduous, and expensive goal to get electricity to millions of underserved people. “We need to provide innovative solutions now, before competitors ‘steal’ our opportunity.”
Osijo explains to investors, “These markets will be big, but later.”
Investors want results
Bboxx needed to serve more people by growing quickly and sustainably in the cloud.
“It is vital to have a strategic global partner like SAP that is flexible and innovative enough to want to work with us on that journey,” explains Osijo.
Bboxx turned to SAP to better manage accounting, supply chains, and inventory with SAP’s cloud-based platform. Other SAP cloud solutions are integrated to help Bboxx automate processes and smoothly expand its footprint into new markets.
Osijo says working with SAP has proven a ‘door-opener’ for the company. He can show investors how the company is meeting environmental and sustainability standards, even while Bboxx copes with real world business challenges like the pandemic, war, weather catastrophes, and supply chain dilemmas.
Life Changing Impact
Bboxx is rapidly expanding into new territories, doubling in size every two years over the past six years. The results are life-changing for impoverished communities that now have electricity and clean water for the first time. Bboxx customers use their mobile phones to track electricity usage and pay pills on Bboxx’s mobile app.
“We’re positively impacting millions of peoples’ lives,” shares Osijo. “I am passionate about the company’s purpose-driven mission to use technology to transform lives through access to energy.”
Bboxx is an SAP Innovation Award-winner. Read about their amazing accomplishment that earned them their award.
