Tech start-up SweepSouth has attracted a new investor, as asset manager Futuregrowth joins other backers with a fresh investment.
Futuregrowth’s latest transaction is an addition to its growing venture capital portfolio of innovative, early-stage growth companies.
SweepSouth, a disruptive online platform for booking, managing and paying for home cleaning, has expanded its offering to gardening and pool cleaning, heavy lifting, fixing and maintenance, and most recently, commercial sanitation.
SweepSouth offers services in SA’s four major metropolitan areas: Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban.
Explaining the rationale of the investment, Amrish Narrandes, head of unlisted equity transactions at Futuregrowth, says: “SweepSouth is an early-stage business disruptor that, instead of solving a Silicon Valley problem, is solving South African-specific problems. The company has taken a large segment of the informal sector, which is one of the biggest employers in South Africa, and formalised it, giving people protection and security in their working environments.”
He says Futuregrowth has been identifying promising companies like SweepSouth that offer great potential, from both a commercial and social impact point of view.
Through the Futuregrowth Development Equity Fund, he says, the investment manager makes selective venture capital investments into what it believes to be distinctive businesses and propositions that offer significant growth potential.
He says the social impact credentials of SweepSouth are impeccable.
“SweepSouth has played a material role in empowering previously vulnerable informal workers by giving them a voice and the ability to control their destiny because they have flexibility and control over their own time.”
Aisha Pandor, co-founder and CEO of SweepSouth, comments on the deal: “We are uplifted each time we see our SweepStars referred to in this way, as it represents how a positive idea can take shape and can change the negative language that has been so deeply entrenched.”
Pandor and Alen Ribec, with whom she co-founded SweepSouth in 2014, have received praise from investors such as Naspers for their tenacity and vision.
The global Internet company has pumped millions in investment in the tech start-up, which is now on the verge of going global.
Other investors in the company include Smollan, Vumela, CRE VC (previously Africa Angels Network), and musician and venture capitalist Black Coffee.
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