SweepSouth, Africa’s largest online marketplace for home services, just announced that it has raised $11 million in a funding round spearheaded by Alitheia IDF (AIF), the continent’s first and largest gender-lens private equity fund.
New investors Endeavor Catalyst, Endeavor’s Harvest Fund II, Caruso Ventures, and E4E Africa joined existing investors Naspers Foundry, The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and Futuregrowth Asset Management in committing to this round.
“This new funding round is an important one for our team as we continue to scale in South Africa, and further grow our operations in Kenya, Nigeria, and Egypt,” Aisha Pandor, co-founder of SweepSouth said.
“We’re excited to continue SweepSouth’s work in connecting customers with home service providers across the continent, building a platform that empowers domestic workers and local tradespeople. We are particularly proud to have raised funding from Alitheia IDF, a female-led fund, and to have included more women investors on the cap table via a female-focused SPV during this round. We are excited about what this means for us going forward and thrilled to have Polo Leteka from Alitheia IDF join the board,” Aisha added.
The company will be able to further develop and grow its infrastructure and team in South Africa thanks to this most recent round of funding. Additionally, the company will be able to roll out new services in existing markets and pursue both greenfield expansions and acquisitions across the African continent and beyond.
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The financing is SweepSouth’s largest to date.
Why The Investors Invested
“We are proud to support SweepSouth’s growth as it expands its platform that substantially improves the financial and social outcomes for domestic workers across Africa, most of which are women. In the domestic services industry, which is notoriously informal and exploitative, SweepSouth’s model solves autonomy, security, and increasing income for its service providers, and affordability and flexibility for its end users. AIF’s investment will enable the development of infrastructure and operations that will deliver growth for stakeholders — particularly domestic workers and local tradespeople at the base of the economic pyramid,” says Polo Leteka, principal partner at the Alitheia IDF Fund.
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Africa’s first women-focused and women-led private equity fund, Alitheia IDF (AIF), is a US$100 million gender-lens fund that was co-founded and is managed by two women-led firms: Alitheia Capital (Lagos, Nigeria) and IDF Capital. Alitheia Capital and IDF Capital are both based in Lagos, Nigeria and Johannesburg, South Africa respectively. .
The fund, which will announce its final close in 2021 and become the largest gender-lens private equity fund in Africa, seeks out small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in six different African countries — Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Zambia — and then invests in those SMEs with the goal of helping those SMEs grow.
“We’re excited about bringing new shareholders on board in our mission to build technology that aids in providing meaningful connections — giving customers access to safe, convenient services, and home service providers access to decent work opportunities under dignified conditions,” Alen Ribic, co-founder of SweepSouth, said.
A Look At What The Startup Does
SweepSouth was established in 2014 by Aisha Pandor and Alen Ribic. The company has a presence in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Egypt, which are the four most important technology markets in Africa.
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SweepSouth continues to scale its current efforts to improve the economic and legal rights of domestic workers, such as the SweepSouth Report on Pay and Working Conditions for Domestic Workers Across Africa, which highlights the struggles of domestic workers in Africa and encourages more action from governments and stakeholders.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexpert