Jacques Coetzee contributed to this article.
Cape Town-based on-demand cleaning service SweepSouth has announced a new R10-million round of funding. This follows a thrilling 2015 which was filled with impressive company growth as well as recognition by one of Silicon Valley’s most prestigious accelerators.
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The new round comes from First Rand Group and Jobs Fund’s capitalised Vumela Fund, which is managed by FNB and Edge Growth, as well as Newtown Partners, owned by Vinny Lingham and Llew Claasen.
In October 2014, SweepSouth was the winning pitch at the SiMODiSA Startup SA conference. In April 2015, it went on to secure seed funding from Newton Partners, Africa Angels Network (AAN), and the Identity Development Fund (IDF). It was then selected to participate in the 500 Startups accelerator in Silicon Valley.
Alen Ribic (pictured above right), co-founder of SweepSouth, tells Ventureburn that although they’re not able to provide the startup’s overall valuation, it is “very high multiples”.
Read more: SweepSouth weighs in on experience at Silicon Valley’s 500 Startups accelerator
“The start of 2016 suggests a year that will be no less exciting for us,” says Aisha Pandor (pictured above left), CEO of SweepSouth.
“With this major new cash injection from the Vumela Fund, we can further expand our rapidly growing national footprint,” adds Pandor.
“We think SweepSouth is one of the leading tech startups in South Africa. The on-demand economy is a huge growth area because a lot of consumers’ needs can be far better served with tech-enabled, on-demand services,” says lead investor Janice Johnston of Edge Growth. She adds that SweepSouth is the Uber of cleaning services in South Africa.
“This funding is important to us as it gets us closer to achieving the goal of modernising the cleaning services industry across the board, in the process, creating thousands of jobs for women and men, the vast majority of whom were unemployed,” says Ribic.
SweetSouth’s job creation opportunities is an important attribute of the investment for Vumela Fund, according to Johnson.
“SweepSouth has one of the most dynamic and creative teams in the startup space and we think they’ll take on-demand service adoption to another level in South Africa,” continues Johnston.
According to a press release sent to Ventureburn, SweepSouth has created thousands of job opportunities in the last few months for women, most of which were unemployed, which has resulted in over 100 000 hours of cleaning. Ribic adds that the startup has grown to employ 10 staff internally, with plans to fulfil other key positions in the coming months.
