PowerLabs aims to expand its platform into Nigeria’s most energy-intensive sectors with the new funding. Providing hospitals and industrial hubs with the intelligent, automated control required to ensure continuous power and operational resilience.

PowerLabs, a Nigerian energy and climate-tech startup, announced the successful close of its pre-seed funding round led by Breega, with participation from Catalyst Fund, Mercy Corps Ventures, and Kaleo Ventures.

This strategic investment will accelerate the rollout of Pai Enterprise, the company’s flagship AI-enabled energy orchestration platform across commercial and industrial enterprises in Nigeria and lay the foundation for expansion into key West African markets

For decades, Nigerian energy management has centered on basic monitoring and tracking of energy consumption. Yet for the millions of businesses dealing with unreliable power grids, diesel generators, rooftop solar, inverters, and battery banks working together to keep operations running, visibility alone delivers no real value unless it leads to resilience and continuity.

The manufacturing sector alone spent ₦1.11 trillion on alternative energy sources in 2024, which is a 42% increase from the year before. A small factory changes its work hours based on when it can get generator fuel. To keep critical care going, a hospital coordinates backup systems.

Every day, the facility team of a commercial building has to make dozens of decisions about reactive energy. Monitoring tools already in use tell you what went wrong, but they do not provide solutions or preventive measures to address the issues identified.

Pai Enterprise changes that equation. Unlike conventional dashboards, Pai Enterprise does not simply observe; it senses, communicates, and actuates across multiple distributed energy sources in real time. By continuously modelling supply, demand, and operational constraints, the platform enables organizations to run their own intelligent microgrid. As a result, the platform transforms energy from a reactive problem into a proactive, strategic resource.

This vision of a self-optimizing energy ecosystem was recently highlighted in a feature that explored how PowerLabs wants to make Nigeria’s grid think by shifting the paradigm from passive consumption to active, intelligent orchestration.

The measurable impact spans Nigeria’s most critical sectors:

• Hospitals: With intelligent monitoring across critical circuits, teams are instantly notified when there are fluctuations in supply, voltage drops, or automatic transitions to backup systems. This real-time visibility ensures that departments like intensive care, laboratories, and operating theatres remain protected, enabling faster response, reduced risk of disruption, and continued patient care.
• Data Centres: By providing continuous insight into the performance of energy assets such as solar systems and generators, operators can track efficiency, optimize usage, and reduce emissions without compromising uptime. The result is a more sustainable infrastructure that still meets the uncompromising reliability standards required for digital operations.
• Factories: Factories require more than just stable power, they need actionable intelligence to drive performance and profitability. Through detailed energy analytics, operators can identify inefficiencies, understand consumption patterns across production lines, and make informed decisions that reduce costs while maintaining output. This transforms energy from a fixed expense into a controllable lever for operational efficiency.
• Retail outlets: By analyzing consumption trends and usage behavior, retail outlets can right-size their energy assets, avoiding overinvestment while ensuring sufficient supply during peak periods. This leads to lower operating costs and improved energy efficiency across single or multi-site retail operations.
• Critical facilities: For critical facilities such as telecom towers, banks, schools etc, uninterrupted operations depend on anticipating issues before they occur. Continuous real-time monitoring enables early detection of anomalies and supports predictive maintenance strategies, reducing downtime and extending asset lifespan.

Tobe, CEO & Co-Founder, PowerLabs said: “Distributed energy resources are often seen as fragmented and chaotic, a clutter of devices that don’t speak the same language. At PowerLabs, we believe decentralization doesn’t have to mean disorder. We’re building the intelligence layer that will prove that distributed energy resources can operate as a unified source while leveraging its disaggregation to offer flexibility, cost efficiency, carbon neutrality and redundancy … more than a centralised energy system ever could. “

PowerLabs will strategically deploy the raised capital to accelerate the rollout of its flagship Pai Enterprise platform, improve its cutting-edge predictive load-management algorithms, and broaden seamless integration with distributed energy assets ranging from rooftop solar and battery storage systems to traditional grid infrastructure.

This funding round brings together a mix of global and Africa-focused investment partners with deep commitment to climate-tech and a proven track record of scaling innovation in emerging markets, all aligned on PowerLabs’ mission to solve energy resilience.

 Breega is an international fund investing in digital, climatech, and deeptech companies across Europe and Africa. Mercy Corps Ventures backs market-systems solutions in fragile and frontier markets; Catalyst Fund, a leading climate-tech investor backing solutions for climate adaptation and resilience in Africa. Kaleo Ventures specializes in early-stage technology companies across high-growth African markets. With their support, PowerLabs is now positioned to scale its intelligent energy solutions, expand Pai Enterprise across sectors and geographies, and demonstrate that the era of traditional energy management is over. Personalized, decentralized, resilient, and intelligent systems are the future, and for millions of people and organizations, that future is already here.

Tosin Faniro-Dada, Partner, Breega, stated that: “We backed PowerLabs at the pre-seed stage because we believe intelligent orchestration will be essential to solving Africa’s energy reliability challenge. The team is building the software and hardware layer that enables businesses to coordinate multiple distributed energy sources in real time. We’re excited to support them as they prove the impact of this model across critical sectors over the next 12–18 months. 

The closing of this investment round is therefore more than a financial milestone: it is a signal that investors, businesses recognize the need for energy systems that do not merely report, but act; that do not assume stability, but adapt in real time; and that view energy not as a static commodity, but as a platform for growth, resilience, and human potential.

“Globally, more and more businesses and critical services like data centers operate in complex energy environments where a mix of energy sources must work together. The energy users typically have to toggle between cost, quality of supply and carbon footprint. PowerLabs is starting in Africa to build the intelligence to orchestrate these systems seamlessly without sacrificing any of these critical factors.” Olúwátóyìn Emmanuel-Olúbákè, Chief Investment Officer, Catalyst Fund

Energy management alone is not enough, and for millions of users who have long struggled with outages, unreliable grids, and fragmented infrastructure, the promise of intelligent energy is not merely convenience; it is the key to unlocking their full potential and powering a new era of human progress.

Federal government has directed all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to suspend the introduction and rollout of new policies, regulations, or major regulatory changes until full compliance with the Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) Framework is achieved.

The directive, issued by Princess Zahrah Mustapha Audu, director general of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), is part of efforts to strengthen regulatory quality, ensure policy coherence, and improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria

According to the statement, the RIA Framework, which was formally implemented in January 2025, requires that all new policies or amendments introduced after the date must undergo review and approval in line with its provisions.

She noted the framework has already been circulated to MDAs by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and is also accessible on the PEBEC website.

MDAs are therefore expected to familiarise themselves with the framework and align their policy development processes accordingly.

Audu emphasised that while the government remains committed to working collaboratively with regulatory institutions, no new reform or policy would be allowed to proceed without being backed by clear and verifiable evidence.

She explained the directive aims to prevent policy shocks that could negatively affect businesses, investors and citizens, eliminate inconsistencies and frequent policy reversals, and institutionalise evidence-based policymaking across government.

The directive also seeks to enhance transparency, improve predictability, and boost stakeholder confidence in public policies, while ensuring adequate engagement to minimise resistance prior to implementation.

Consequently, all MDAs have been instructed to suspend any planned policy rollouts that have not yet been implemented, ensure that new policy proposals are supported by comprehensive RIA and necessary approvals, and integrate the RIA process into their internal policy formulation procedures.

They are also required to undertake structured and inclusive stakeholder engagement as part of policy development to improve acceptance and implementation outcomes.

The PEBEC boss added that MDAs can access the RIA Framework through its website or seek technical support from the council’s secretariat.

She, however, noted that exceptions would only be granted in cases of urgent national interest, subject to appropriate approval.

Audu stressed that cooperation from all MDAs is crucial to building a stable, consistent and business-friendly regulatory environment capable of driving sustainable economic growth and boosting investor confidence.

The Federal Government has unveiled a new digital platform, NITOUREY, aimed at showcasing Nigeria’s rich cultural heritage and tourism destinations to global audiences.

The initiative, introduced at a press conference organised by the Nigerian Tourism Development Authority, was described as a public-private partnership designed to project Nigeria’s diverse cultural assets.

Speaking at the event on Tuesday, the Minister of Arts, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa, said the platform marked another step in repositioning Nigeria as a leading global destination for tourism, culture and creative excellence.

She explained that the digital project would harness the power of the creative economy and technology to amplify Nigeria’s cultural narratives while creating opportunities for young Nigerians, filmmakers, content creators and tourism operators.

Musawa said, “Today marks yet another significant step in our collective journey to reposition Nigeria as a leading global destination for tourism, culture and creative excellence.

“The initiative aligned with the administration’s economic diversification drive, noting that tourism had the potential to contribute significantly to national growth.

“President Bola Tinubu has a vision to use tourism as part of economic diversification and expansion, and NTDA can play a vital role in achieving that goal”.

She emphasised that NITOUREY would not only showcase destinations across the country but also create economic opportunities within the creative industry.

“Through this initiative, we are not only showcasing destinations across Nigeria but also creating opportunities for the creative industries, including filmmakers, content creators, tourism operators and young Nigerians within the creative economy,” she added.

The minister also stressed the importance of collaboration between government agencies, state governments and the private sector, noting that the platform was a PPP initiative designed to unlock the full potential of Nigeria’s tourism and creative sectors.

“This is a commendable PPP initiative that demonstrates the collaboration required to unlock the full potential of Nigeria’s tourism and creative industry,” she said.

She further assured stakeholders that the Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy would continue to support initiatives that enhance Nigeria’s visibility, attract investment and create jobs.

In his remarks, the Director General of NTDA, Ola Awakan, described NITOUREY as a transformative platform that will redefine how Nigeria is presented to the world.

He emphasised that tourism thrives on perception, visibility, and storytelling, noting that the platform will collaborate with key institutions, including the Nigerian Film Corporation, National Film and Video Censors Board, and the National Information Technology Development Agency, to deliver high-quality content.

Awakan added that the initiative is powered by a strong public-private partnership involving TOURCLIQ Creatives Limited and JM MiSA International Limited, underscoring the importance of collaboration in unlocking the full potential of Nigeria’s tourism and creative industries.

He further revealed that NITOUREY will spotlight iconic destinations across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, including Zuma Rock, Yankari Resort and Safari, the Argungu Fishing Festival, Ngwo Pine Forest and Cave, Obudu Mountain Resort, and Olumo Rock, projecting them to a global audience.

The platform is expected to serve as Nigeria’s premier tourism streaming platform, projecting the country’s culture, creativity and destinations to both domestic and international audiences.