Lesedi Solar Care Business Plan — Funding Requirement & Use of Funds

Lesedi is raising R38 million of equity alongside R14 million of asset finance and a R6 million working capital facility, R58 million in total, to build a…

Funding Requirement & Use of Funds

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Lesedi is raising R38 million of equity alongside R14 million of asset finance and a R6 million working capital facility, R58 million in total, to build a national field platform of three regional depots, a robotic cleaning fleet and the LumenIQ analytics layer.

Figure 24. Funding structure: R58 million total.

16.1 Sources

Source	Amount	Terms (indicative)
Equity raise	R38.0m	Ordinary shares; Sizwe Growth Capital anchor with Helios strategic participation
Asset finance	R14.0m	5-year instalment sale over vehicles, robots and bowsers; secured on the assets financed
Working capital facility	R6.0m	Revolving facility against contracted debtors; drawn seasonally
Total funding	R58.0m

16.2 Why this funding mix is well matched

The structure matches instrument to asset, which is the correct discipline for a field-services business. Equity funds the items with no resale value and uncertain payback, depot establishment, the platform, the academy and working capital through the loss-making first year. Asset finance funds vehicles, robots and bowsers, which are movable, identifiable and have a resale market, and is secured on precisely those assets over a five-year term matched to their five- to seven-year useful lives. The revolving facility funds the receivables cycle rather than fixed assets. Nothing long-term is funded short-term, and nothing unsecurable is financed with debt.

16.3 Deployment

Figure 25. Cumulative deployment of the R38 million equity raise.

Period	Capital deployed	Cumulative
Months 0–3	R18.6m	R18.6m
Months 4–6	R7.4m	R26.0m
Months 7–12	R5.4m	R31.4m
Months 13–18	R3.2m	R34.6m
Months 19–24	R3.4m	R38.0m

Analyst flagConsider tranching the equity against contracted-capacity milestones

Roughly half the equity, R18.6 million, is committed within three months of close, and 82% within twelve months, largely before the plan’s central assumption has been tested. That assumption is not technical or regulatory; it is that a new entrant can contract 250 to 320 MW a year against incumbents. The Plan’s own mitigation is that depot rollout is staged against signed capacity rather than forecast, which is the right instinct. An investor could give that instinct contractual force by tranching: a first tranche funding the Upington and Midrand depots, the first robot batch and the platform, with subsequent tranches released against contracted-capacity milestones at months twelve and twenty-four. The business is capable of absorbing capital in stages precisely because its capital is field equipment rather than a single indivisible asset.