Online cleaning services platform SweepSouth has raised close to R200m in new funding, its biggest capital raise to date, as it looks to bulk up its presence at home and elsewhere in Africa.
SweepSouth, which was cofounded in 2014 by Aisha Pandor and Alen Ribic, connects clients to about 25,000 pre-vetted cleaners.
The $11m (R198m) capital infusion, the details of which were announced on Monday, was led by Alitheia IDF (AIF), an African private equity fund.
Alitheia IDF (AIF), Africa’s first women-focused and women-led private equity fund, is a $100m investment house managed by two firms — Nigeria’s Alitheia Capital and SA’s IDF Capital. The fund specialises in growing and investing in “SMEs led by gender-diverse teams in six African countries: Nigeria, SA, Ghana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Zambia”.
SweepSouth investors Naspers Foundry, The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Futuregrowth Asset Management also took part in the round, as well as new investors Endeavor Catalyst, Endeavor SA’s Harvest Fund II, Caruso Ventures and E4E Africa.
Regarded as Africa’s largest online home services platform, the company is working on a plan to expand operations on the continent’s four key tech ecosystems: SA, Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria.
The new funding is earmarked for growth in SA — specifically expanding its local infrastructure and team — as well as rolling out new services in existing markets and expanding into other regions.
Pandor said “this new funding round is an important one for our team as we continue to scale in SA, and further grow our operations in Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt”.
“In the domestic services industry, which is notoriously informal and exploitive, SweepSouth’s model solves autonomy, security, and increasing income for its service providers, and affordability and flexibility for its end users,” said Polo Leteka, principal partner for Alitheia IDF Fund.
At the tail end of 2021, the company said it had acquired 100% of Egyptian start-up Filkhedma for an undisclosed sum.
Established in 2014, Filkhedma is a home services marketplace operating across three cities and serving tens of thousands of customers with cleaning, maintenance and beauty services through a network of more than 2,000 service providers.
Back in 2019, Naspers’s R1.4bn start-up fund, Naspers Foundry, invested R30m in SweepSouth. This was the fund’s first investment since Naspers announced its formation in October 2018.
Since then, SweepSouth has received backing from investors that include Smollan, Vumela, CRE VC and musician Black Coffee.
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