Husk Power Systems is close to securing a $1.5 million financing from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private investment arm. The funding is expected to be finalized at a meeting in May and follows last month’s $375,000 investment by the Acumen Fund.
We first learned of Husk Power from Lynn Tabernacki of the Overseas Private Investment Corp., (OPIC), one of the company’s inaugural backers, with $750,000 invested in the company. The Shell Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Royal Dutch Shell, also put some money into the startup.
Husk Power plans to use the new investments to deploy up to 100 of its new plants across India over the next year, Reuters reports.
The company, launched by a group of MBA students at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, has developed an inexpensive electricity-generation system that turns rice husks into biogas to fuel mini power plants.
It’s unclear what equity stake the IFC will take in the company following its investment.