Switch to Solar Incubation 2021

Incubation

Paving the way for entrepreneurs to start up a business
using solar for the agri-fishery market

What is the Switch to Solar Incubation Program?

A one-year program to support entrepreneurs launch and grow their startup business.

The program provides:

Seed Investment Grant
6-weekend Bootcamps
Fortnightly Coaching and Mentoring
Pitch Preparation
Investor Introductions
Access to Co-working Space

APPLICATION CLOSED

How Does It Work?

The program covers 3 phases over the year:

Build

support you to build and launch a minimum viable product and secure your early adopters

Sell

support you to begin selling your product, manage finances, organisation

Grow

support you to strengthen your operational financial capacity to grow

What is Included?

Mentoring

Dedicated Khmer and English mentors to keep your team on track to success and co-design your business model

Market linkage and networking

Connect to experts and businesses working in solar, agriculture and fishery sectors

Financial support and investors

Grant to prototype your product and launch your business. Training and support to access investment

Training

Business training to develop entrepreneur skills

Team creation

Help to find other team members if you have an idea but looking for other skills and expertise

Co-designing your business

Assistance to codesign your business concept using pool of experts & using market knowledge

Multi-year program

Learn from other cohorts and apply when you're ready during the 4 year program

Acceleration

Support from advisory board and a pool of mentors after 12 months incubation

Highlights of the Impact

12

Startups graduated from the program

6

New technology solution designed and adopted by STPs

5

Startups with new business model established

17

Units of Solar technology were sold during the program

10

Green job created by Startups graduates

10

Startups received grants from Khmer Enterprise

Partnering with Khmer Enterprise

Through our partnership with Khmer Enterprise, startups have accessed to 'Seed Investment Grant' worth USD 7.5k per startup to support costs with prototyping, marketing, reaching customers and other expenses.

Other Aspects of Khmer Enterprise Partnership

Successful startups from Incubation Program pitch to Khmer Enterprise for scale-up investment

Access to network of mentors, ecosystem, startups collaboration
Research

Access for to Khmer Enterprise co-working space

Meet Our Mentors

Ian Jones
CEO, Mekong Inclusive Venture
Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Impact ventures

LinkedIn
Vansonita Men
Senior Consultant & Project Manager, Sevea
Business development, SMEs, Energy, WASH, and Agriculture sectors
LinkedIn
Boleap Born
Senior Project Coordinator/Business Advisor, Sevea
Startup business development, Agriculture and clean energy
LinkedIn
Khim Bun
Project Manager, Agile Development Group
social enterprise, design thinking, development

LinkedIn
Buntong Borarin
Director of Research and Extension
Royal University of Agriculture
Agriculture post-harvest
LinkedIn
Thida Kheav
Director, Solar Green Energy Cambodia
Solar, Water pumps, Component manufacturing, Sales
LinkedIn

SEE ALL ENERGYLAB MENTORS

What Startups Say about the Program

Mr. Keat Savry
Founder of Elephant Pump (EP)
Participating in the Incubation program was exciting for young entrepreneur like Elephant Pump. I was able to strengthen my knowledge in developing a business plan. I met many new networks in the program. Additionally, my sales and marketing strategies has progressively developed thank to skillsets and tools provided in the program.
Mr. Son Thearavy
Founder of Solar Aerator Cambodia (SAC)
Despite facing many obstacles, my team managed to complete the prototype and grow the brand visibility throughout the program. I did not expect SAC to come this far. I am grateful to all mentors for their insightful guidance. I gained and improved my soft skills a lot with this program including confidence, communication, and time management as well as the hard skills such as business stakeholder and customer mapping and analysis.

Cohort 01: Startup Teams

For Cambodian remote communities living in Tonle Sap with no grid power availability, the conventional solution of using diesel to power refrigeration has significant operating costs and logistical challenges. This startup wants to solve this issue by supplying solar cold storage solutions to fish harvesting businesses to reduce the cost and increase food quality.
Solar Cold Storage
Tonlesap Shrimp Queen's mission is to reinvigorate the freshwater shrimp market with a premium market product. The business focuses on the processing of drying the Tonle Sap freshwater shrimp through solar technology. The value proposition of the products to consumers is hygiene, organic and social impact to the fisheries community in Tonle Sap. They will own facilities, solar technology and quality control in Siem Reap province. The packaging and sales distribution will be in Phnom Penh.
Tonlesap Shrimp Queen
KRETA stands for "Khmer Renewable Energy Technology for Aquaculture''. The team focuses on modernizing fish farming through solar technology. The business aims to provide a reliable solar energy solution to supply water pumps and air pumps in the fish tank. The system uses smart automation to optimize water quality conditions of specific types of fish farming.
KRETA
Cambodian farmers traditionally farm shrimp in a cement tank that's not easy to move and difficult to control water quality, causing yields to decline . In addition, there is a loss of shrimp resources in the Tonle Sap meaning farmers may need to turn to farmed fish. This business aims to develop a user-friendly shrimp kit which is easy to move and does not need a large space. This solution will help farmers to manage their production efficiently.
Shrimp House
Agriculture Techniques wants to solve the problem of low agri-fishery production and high electricity cost for farmers in rural areas. Their business aims to modernize the agriculture techniques in Cambodia by introducing the solar operated aerators for intensive aquaculture.
Agriculture Techniques

Cohort 2: Startup Teams

Solar Aerator Cambodia aims to help fish farmers to solve the issue of low production due to low water quality leading to high mortality rate and slow growth by developing the aerator powered by solar energy that could increae the dissolved oxygen and stocking density while reducing the labour cost and no diesel requirement for fish farmers.
Solar Aerator Cambodia
Kasekor Chhlat, established in 2018, seeks to find the best solution to modernize the food drying process to increase the efficiency in post-harvest processing in the agricultural engineering sector in Cambodia. This method can be used to help with drying fruit tuber or leafy producer and fish or meat producer to process a good final product.
Kasekor Chhlat
To reduce the high expense of drying process in Cambodia, Harvest the Sun develops the Solar dryer dome which is a drying method that can possibly improve the safety and quality of dried products. By using renewable energy, this method will reduce the production cost of food processors, food loss and protect the environment.
Harvest the Sun
Elephant Pump provides a new design of water pumping solution which has a large-diameter and is submersible powering by solar energy. This pump is a high flow and low cost design that tackles the lack of large scale irrigation system issues for farmers that are not connected to the electricity grid forcing them to use gasoline/diesel leading to a high operation cost.
Elephant Pump
SE Cambodia aims to strengthen livestock raising, Agri-Fishery SMEs and its member entrepreneurs in rural Cambodia, to effectively manage and maintain the renewable energy of Solar Animal and Fish Feed Processing (SAFFP).
SE Cambodia
Agro Agape creates a business model that supports coffee farmers by giving them access to solar dryers. Solar dryers will help reduce product loss or waste and increase product quality to supply into the market. Agro Agape will help them reach the market by purchasing their coffee.
Agro Agape

Check Out the Videos
of Startups

Switch to Solar Startup Program

Supporting your entrepreneur journey from early ideas, validation, prototyping, first customers and growth.

Hackathon

You are interested in agri-fishery market and want to explore ideas and meet others with similar interests.

The weekend hackathon process helps you form a team, explore the problems and ideate a business solution.

Application Closed

Pre-Incubation

You have a team or business idea that uses solar for the agri-fishery market, but you want to check if the concept is valid.

The 6-week business validation process helps you develop your prototype concept and explore the business fundamentals to decide if it's GO/NO GO

Application Closed

Incubation

You have a team with a valid business concept or prototype and you want guidance and support to succeed.

The 1-year incubation program gives you solar assistance, business training, coaching/mentoring and funding to help you reach your customers with the best product and business model to succeed.

Application Closed

Acceleration

A program supports an established business using solar technology as the core product value in the agri-fishery markets and would like to scale up.

The 6-month acceleration program supports startups or established businesses in the agriculture and/or fishery sector using solar technology to become investment ready with investment-readiness training, technical mentorship, and meetings with potential funders, investors, and MFIs.

Application Closed

Feel free to contact us. We really love to communicate with you or send us your business concept whenever you are ready and we can help you to build your application.

Ms. Chin Sonita
Program Manager
Phone: ‭+855 70 894 486
E-mail: [email protected]

This SWITCH to Solar Startup Program is part of the SWITCH to Solar project, funded by the European Union (EU) through the SWITCH-Asia Programme and the Czech Republic through the Czech Development Agency (CzDA).
Khmer Enterprise provides seed investment grants in this Incubation Program under KE mandate to support the agriculture sector and use of solar.