‘Uprise.Africa mulling 159 deals worth almost R1-billion’ [Updated]

SA equity crowdfunding platform Uprise.Africa is considering 159 applications for new campaigns totalling nearly R1-billion, the platform’s CEO Tabassum Qadir has revealed.

Thus far Uprise.Africa has run only a single campaign, for Drifter beer, which last year raised over R3.8-million from 196 investors.

However, the platform aims to takes on new campaigns after closing an investment deal with Silicon Valley based venture capital (VC) firm Nexxus Ventures late last year. At the time of the announcement of the deal in October last year, the platform did not reveal the amount that the VC fund had invested or the stake it had taken in the platform (see this story).

In May last year the platform revealed that was conducting due diligence work on 80 potential campaigns (see this story).

SA equity crowdfunding platform Uprise.Africa is mulling applications for new campaigns totalling nearly R1-billion

Qadir (pictured above) revealed the figure of nearly R1-billion in applications that the platform is mulling, in response to an email from Ventureburn last Thursday (24 January).

She said each deal ranges in size from R3-million to R15-million, with the average deal size at about R6-million.

The applications came from a broad range of sectors — from “manufacturing to tech, more traditional businesses to innovations and disruptors”. In all these applicants have requested close to a R1-billion in funding, she said.

She stressed however that the platform still needed to establish the “viability or legitimacy” of each funding request and is engaging with key industry players to assist it to do so. “This is purely the amount across all the applications,” she added.

Uprise.Africa’s investment from Nexxus Ventures, she said, had enabled the platform to proceed with the hiring of new staff and training. The platform is looking to hire five key executives, including a COO and CFO, said Qadir.

“As a result, we have not launched any additional campaigns since Drifter. This was a conscious decision of Uprise.Africa to wait, and it was not due to the lack of quality applications. We have some exciting deals in our pipeline that we will start launching in the next few weeks,” she said.

Read more: Uprise.Africa crowdfunding platform nets investment from Silicon Valley VC
Read more: Uprise.Africa mulls 80 projects for equity crowdfunding, as Drifter raise hits R3m [Updated]
Read more: Craft brewer Drifter raises R1m in first day of equity crowdfunding campaign [Updated]
Read more: More than 30 sign-ups to Uprise.Africa SA’s first equity crowdfunding site
Read more: Uprise.Africa to launch first crowdfunding campaign this month says COO Schofield
Read more: SA equity crowdfunding site Uprise.Africa launches after response from FSBF

Editor’s note (29 January 2019): This story was updated to include the exact number of deals that the platform is currently considering. The average deal size has been corrected to R6-million (from the between R7-million and R8-million that we had it as before).

Featured image: Uprise.Africa CEO Uprise.Africa CEO Tabassum Qadir (CityNews INTL via Twitter)