Meet the founder who turned down $1.5 million — and built one of Africa’s fastest-growing companies two years in a row

WiSolar wasn’t Tonye Irims’ first venture, or his first failure. Before launching the company in 2016, he had tried his hand at two startups: WiMobile in 2006 and FriendsChip, a social payments platform he launched in Texas in 2011. Both eventually failed, but failure didn’t stop him.

South Africa, where Irims launched WiSolar, was in the thick of an energy crisis. Blackouts were the norm, electricity costs kept climbing, and the grid was anything but reliable. According to the Department of Trade and Industry, the country’s economy lost as much as 850 billion rand (about $46 billion) between 2021 and 2024 due to six consecutive shocks.

Also, despite being Africa’s most industrialized economy, South Africa was still heavily reliant on coal and had only just begun to flirt with renewables. In the middle of the chaos, Irims saw a gap and moved fast to fill it.

WiSolar is a digital solar company that lets people in South Africa and Nigeria pay for solar power as they use it. The company uses a model called a power purchase agreement (PPA), where WiSolar installs and looks after the solar system in a customer’s home.

Then, through the app, the customer buys power per kilowatt-hour through the WiSolar app, much like topping up mobile airtime.

“This way, people can get solar power without paying anything upfront,” Irims told Business Insider Africa.

The simplicity of the model clicked, especially in underserved communities in South Africa, where reliable energy is scarce and buying solar systems is even scarcer. But the early years were tough.

“We had a hard time convincing people to believe in us,” Irims said. “We were struggling to get stakeholder buy-in, educating customers on how solar electricity works, operating with almost zero capital to execute.” At one point, he even tried to sell the business and the first outlet. “No one thought it was worth anything then.”

Things started to change in 2018 when he got a small seed fund of about R60,000 ($4,000). That money helped him travel to Shenzhen, China, to understand solar tech and build supplier relationships.

In 2023, WiSolar got a big offer, a $1.5 million loan from South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). But Irims turned it down. He felt the conditions were too restrictive and risked limiting the company’s growth and compromising its core values and mission.

The IDC’s loan offer, made under its energy resilience scheme, came with a terminal drawdown date of March 31, 2025, and a ten-year repayment term. It required monthly capital repayments starting from the drawdown date, alongside excessive disclosure requirements and offered little in terms of value-added support.

For many early-stage African startups, saying no to money is almost unthinkable. Capital is scarce, and founders are often under pressure to take what they can get. Raising fund is especially tough in the energy space where WiSolar operates, unlike fintech, which is typically easier to scale. But Irims believes the wrong money can kill more than it can grow.

“If you’re an investor who just has megalithic views. If you’re just in it to make a quick buck, not looking at the long-term vision of the company, that is a red flag for me. You need to have a long-term view, play the long game, and look at the social impacts as well, like how many jobs it’s going to create, how it’s going to impact the environment,” he stressed.

“They wanted too much,” Irims told me. “Our IP is very sacrosanct to us. Commercials are fine, but certain IPs we cannot disclose. If you start pressing for that IP information or turn us into an educational class, it becomes a bit of a turnoff. That’s not the kind of investor we want.”

For Irims, the right investor brings more than cash, they bring vision, access, and trust. Funding remains one of WiSolar’s biggest challenges, not because capital isn’t out there, but because the right kind of capital is rare.

“Finding partners who get your mission, who are aligned with your values and can open doors to markets, that’s tough. A lot of funds don’t even have the mandate for what we do.”

Walking away from that IDC deal didn’t stop WiSolar. The cleantech company now operates in both South Africa and Nigeria, two of Africa’s biggest energy markets, and keeps expanding through a mix of B2B and residential offerings.

Last year, it secured $9 million in revolving credit from Chinese institutions last year to back its Climate Zero Initiative, and deploy solar energy across 10 Nigerian states.

It has been ranked as one of Africa’s fastest-growing companies for two consecutive years by the Financial Times and Statista, which tracked compound annual growth from 2020 to 2023.

So, what advice does Irims have for entrepreneurs thinking about giving up? “It takes a heart of steel” he says. “You’ll face doubts, rejections, and naysayers, and well-meaning supporters too. You have to know the difference.”

And his secret to success? “Focus on building one thing well before trying to diversify. Single-minded focus works.”