Madagascar billionaire Hassanein Hiridjee's AXIAN Energy raises $60 million to expand renewable power across Africa

AXIAN Energy, the renewable energy arm of Madagascar billionaire Hassanein Hiridjee's AXIAN Group, has secured a $60 million financing facility with the Mauritius Commercial Bank to fund the expansion of its renewable energy portfolio across Africa, the companies announced on June 16, 2026.

The facility comprises a $40 million revolving credit line with a three-year tenor and extension option, plus $20 million in unfunded instruments. The structure gives AXIAN Energy the financial flexibility to deploy capital quickly when project opportunities arise across its target markets without being locked into a single drawdown timeline.

AXIAN Energy currently operates 350 megawatts of installed renewable energy capacity, supported by 77 megawatt-hours of energy storage. The company is targeting 2 gigawatts of installed capacity by 2030, a nearly sixfold increase from its current base. Solar projects are actively under development in Senegal, Benin, Zambia, Ivory Coast, Madagascar and Burkina Faso.

Benjamin Memmi, chief executive of AXIAN Energy, said the facility provides the capital momentum the company needs to maintain the pace it has set over the past two years. "This transaction marks a key milestone in AXIAN Energy's growth trajectory," he said. "It provides us with the financial capacity to sustain the momentum we have built over the past two years, further strengthening our renewable energy portfolio and expanding our presence across new African markets."

MCB, the leading bank in Mauritius and the main entity of MCB Group, structured the facility to align with AXIAN's project-driven growth model. The bank is ranked first in East Africa and twelfth in Africa among the Top 1000 Banks by Tier 1 capital according to The Banker magazine, and tenth in Africa by assets according to Jeune Afrique's 2025 ranking. Mathieu Delteil, MCB's global head of structured finance, said the deal reflects the bank's long-term commitment to mobilising capital for Africa's energy transition. "By leveraging our sector expertise and deep understanding of regional markets, we have delivered a tailored financing solution that aligns with AXIAN's long-term renewable energy ambitions," he said.

The deal represents a deepening of what both sides describe as a long-standing pan-African relationship between two Indian Ocean-anchored institutions with continental ambitions. AXIAN Group is headquartered in Madagascar and operates across telecommunications, real estate, financial services and energy in 16 countries spanning Africa and the Indian Ocean islands. MCB has banking operations and representative offices in Madagascar, Maldives, Seychelles, Reunion, Mayotte, France, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Dubai.

AXIAN Energy operates across eight African countries through five subsidiaries: NEA, WeLight, CGHV, Jovena and Eydon, covering the full energy value chain from development and financing through construction and operations. The company employs more than 1,000 professionals and positions itself as both a developer and an operator of large-scale renewable infrastructure, a combination that gives it revenue visibility beyond the project construction phase.

Africa's energy deficit remains one of the continent's most persistent structural constraints on economic growth. The International Energy Agency has estimated that more than 600 million Africans lack access to electricity, and that the continent needs to add more than 300 gigawatts of new power capacity by 2030 to meet projected demand growth. Private developers with the track record, technical capacity and capital access to execute large-scale renewable projects are in short supply relative to the scale of that need.

The $60 million MCB facility is not a transformative sum in the context of a 2 gigawatt buildout target. It is a working capital and bridge financing tool, designed to give AXIAN Energy the speed and flexibility to move on opportunities before longer-term project finance is in place. In the African energy project development cycle, where land rights, grid connection agreements, power purchase agreements and regulatory approvals must all be secured before institutional lenders will commit project finance, the ability to deploy flexible capital early in the development process is a genuine competitive advantage.

Hiridjee chairs the AXIAN Group across all its divisions. He was elected to the Jumia Technologies board of directors in June 2026, extending his institutional profile in African technology beyond his own group's operations. AXIAN Telecom, the group's telecommunications arm, separately secured a fresh financing commitment of up to 170 million euros from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development earlier this month.