Malagasy billionaire Hassanein Hiridjee's AXIAN secures 300 million euros from Proparco to expand energy infrastructure across Africa

Hassanein Hiridjee's AXIAN Group has secured up to 300 million euros from French development finance institution Proparco in a strategic partnership that will fund telecom networks, data centers, renewable energy projects and electric vehicle charging infrastructure across Africa over the next three years.

The agreement was signed on the sidelines of the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi on May 12, with AXIAN participating through its telecom brand Yas and its energy subsidiary AXIAN Energy. Proparco, which operates in developing and emerging countries as an affiliate of the Agence Francaise de Developpement, described the deal as part of its broader commitment to accelerating private sector development on the continent.

The scope of the partnership is wide. On the digital side, the two parties will work to extend connectivity in rural and underserved areas, with a particular focus on mobile and fixed network expansion. Data center development is also a priority, to build local storage and processing capacity that reduces African dependence on servers hosted outside the continent. On the energy side, the partnership covers solar, hydroelectric and wind projects, battery storage solutions and decentralized mini-grids, alongside energy services designed specifically to power telecom infrastructure.

Hiridjee was direct about what the capital means for the group's ambitions. "This partnership with Proparco gives us additional means to scale solutions that already serve tens of millions of Africans, and to reach those who still lack the basics," he said in a statement issued at the signing.

The deal arrives at a significant moment in AXIAN's continental expansion. The group, which Hiridjee co-founded with his brother Amin in Madagascar, now operates across 21 African countries and generated 2024 group revenues of $2.75 billion, with AXIAN Telecom alone posting $1.69 billion in revenue in 2025. Earlier this year, AXIAN signed binding agreements to acquire five Letshego banking subsidiaries across Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda, adding five regulated banking licenses to a portfolio that already spans telecoms, real estate, financial services and energy. The Proparco deal gives that expansion programme a significant new source of patient capital.

Proparco's involvement matters beyond the headline figure. Development finance institutions bring more than money to infrastructure deals. Their participation signals to commercial lenders that a project or company meets environmental, social and governance standards that have become increasingly important for institutional investors. AXIAN's access to Proparco financing strengthens its position as it competes with larger telecoms operators for spectrum, infrastructure contracts and government partnerships across markets where relationships with development finance bodies carry real commercial weight.

The Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, where the deal was signed, also saw separate agreements involving other Lome-based financial institutions. Ecobank and BOAD each signed independent partnerships with Proparco at the event, with Ecobank's deal covering the financing of African agricultural value chains and BOAD's targeting private sector support across the UEMOA zone. The clustering of these agreements at a single summit reflects Proparco's increasing focus on building anchor relationships with institutions that have genuine continental scale and reach, rather than spreading smaller commitments across individual country-level projects.

AXIAN Energy, which sits alongside the telecom business within the group's structure, has been building a renewable energy portfolio that is now positioned as a platform for the kind of decentralized infrastructure investment the Proparco partnership is designed to accelerate. Mini-grids, in particular, represent a significant opportunity across West and East Africa where national grid extension to rural areas remains decades away in many communities. Battery storage technology has come down in cost quickly enough that combined solar and storage installations are now commercially viable in markets where they were not three years ago.

Electric vehicle charging infrastructure is the newest addition to AXIAN Energy's investment agenda and reflects a longer-term bet on transport electrification across African cities. The timeline for meaningful EV penetration in most African markets remains unclear, but the charging infrastructure needs to be built ahead of adoption rather than after it, and companies that establish early positions in that space carry an advantage that is difficult to replicate later.

AXIAN Telecom currently serves more than 16 million subscribers across its markets, operating under the Yas brand in multiple countries including Togo, Madagascar, Tanzania, Comoros and Seychelles.