Nigerian startup PowerLabs says it is on a mission to create a planet with limitless human productivity through intelligent energy.
Founded in 2023, PowerLabs builds, designs and deploys intelligent and personalised energy consumer applications, devices and services that help customers access electricity at the lowest costs with zero downtime and emissions.
Its flagship product, Pai Enterprise, is an intelligent energy management and control platform that helps 24/7 and multi-site businesses maximise uptime at the lowest possible cost, by optimising and managing all their energy sources in one place.
Tobe Arize, CEO and co-founder of PowerLabs, said the startup is not operating in the energy monitoring market, but rather energy intelligence.
“Today, most monitoring tools tell you what happened after the fact, but our solution, Pai Enterprise, decides what to do next and can take action for you automatically and in real time. While others focus on collecting and reporting the data, we orchestrate it, turning complex energy systems into unified and resilient systems that help businesses grow their operations at the lowest attainable cost,” he said.
Pai Enterprise has been deployed in the Northern and Southern part of Nigeria across industries like hospitals, banks, factories, retail outlets, schools amongst others. PowerLabs recently secured an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding to accelerate the rollout of its flagship AI-enabled energy orchestration platform across commercial and industrial enterprises.
“The goal for us has always been to build locally and scale globally. In the coming months we can share more details on our expansion plans,” Arize said.
PowerLabs monetises via enterprise customers through hardware deployments and software services, as well as premium product add-ons that its customers request. Arize says building in Nigeria can at times be tough.
“Startups in Nigeria face real challenges, from regulatory instability that can shift the rules of the game overnight, to infrastructure deficits that make building reliable solutions harder,” he said. “At PowerLabs, we tackle these by designing operational systems and processes that are resilient to change, building strong local partnerships, and investing in technology that can operate reliably even in tough conditions. It’s about turning challenges into opportunities to deliver real, dependable value for our customers.”
