SOUTH AFRICA – SweepSouth, Africa’s largest online marketplace for home services, has announced that it has raised US$11 million in a funding round spearheaded by Alitheia IDF (AIF), the 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.”

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.

“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,” said Polo Leteka, principal partner at the Alitheia IDF Fund.

“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.”

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.

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