Cape Town, 2 May 2017 – SweepSouth, the market-leading pioneer in using technology to provide on-demand and regular home cleaning services on the African continent, today announced it has concluded its Series A financing round.
The strategic investment is led by Smollan, the international retail solutions company and associate of WPP and Advantage Solutions, as well as from Draper Dark Flow, the Silicon Valley VC Fund for Africa established by Tim Draper. Existing investors, Identity Development Fund Managers (via their Identity Future Fund) and CRE VC also participated in the round, in addition to new incoming private investor DJ Black Coffee.
Since SweepSouth’s last funding round, announced in early 2016, the home cleaning platform expanded into Durban and Pretoria, launched its native mobile app and grew its revenue by 6 times. This track record of growth and consistent service delivery in newly launched territories, combined with its aggressive strategic growth targets of expanding outside of South Africa and creating work for 10,000 SweepStars within the next 12 months, has supported SweepSouth in successfully closing its third funding round.
“We’re particularly excited about the strategic nature of our partnerships with our new incoming investors. Smollan’s reach – it operates in 36 international markets – will provide the perfect avenue to rapidly expand internationally.” Says Aisha Pandor, SweepSouth Co-founder and CEO. “From our very first meeting we had a wonderful synergy with Dave and Mike Smollan, and believe our shared values and combined strengths will result in a lot of great new innovation from SweepSouth. DDF Capital brings its expertise in scaling tech, particularly in Africa, and DJ Black Coffee is an inspirational and influential international but local-born ambassador with a brand we’re proud to be associated with.”
“This funding will lay the groundwork for our international and service expansion, helping us intensify our efforts to create work for thousands more, and positively impact even more people in additional African markets,” says Alen Ribic, Co-founder and the company’s CTO.
The company has already created work opportunities for over 3,000 women who were previously unemployed and underemployed, and recently reached the milestone of 1,000,000 hours of cleaning.
Of the investment, David Smollan, CEO of lead investor Smollan, says “We are proud to partner with Sweepsouth which is perfectly aligned with our purpose of developing and executing leading solutions which deliver growth and have a profound social impact.”
SweepSouth is founded on the belief that the home cleaning industry needed to be modernised through technology as well as a change in mindset towards the conviction that everyone deserves access to dignified work at decent pay.
About SweepSouth
SweepSouth is an online platform for booking, managing and paying for home cleaning services using a laptop, phone or tablet. The platform makes it easy and convenient for anyone to book and pay for cleaning services, and connects clients with efficient, reliable and trustworthy cleaners.
SweepSouth’s home cleaning professionals have gone through a rigorous interview process and are experienced, reference- and background checked, criminal record-checked, and fully insured.
About the founders:
Pandor has a PhD in Genetics and is a former management consultant with experience in HR management, strategy and operations. She has recently been awarded by the World Economic Forum Africa as one of Africa’s top breakthrough female innovators of 2017. Alen Ribic, SweepSouth’s co-founder and CTO has over a decade of experience in software engineering, particularly in developing highly scalable systems.
For more information please contact:
Semaphore
Elzaan Rohde: elzaan@semaphore.co.za or 083 256 1493
About Smollan
Founded in 1931, Smollan is a retail solutions company, delivering growth for retailers and brand owners across five continents. We cover every aspect of how brands are managed in retail environments through the creation and execution of leading solutions in field sales, retail execution, activation, information and technology. Internationally recognised for our exceptional human platform of over 60 000 people and our sophisticated systems, we drive sales and create brilliant shopper experiences for some of the world’s most loved brands.
Smollan is an associate of WPP, one of the world’s leading communications services groups, and Advantage Solutions, North America’s leading provider of sales and marketing solutions.
For more information please contact:
Michael Smollan: michael.smollan@smollan.com
About DDF Capital
DDF Capital is a venture capital fund that invests in awesome African startups that can globally scale. It specializes in seed stage investments. Founded in 2015 by Tim Draper and Toro Orero, DDF Capital is headquartered in San Mateo, California.
Tim Draper is the founder of DFJ (DFJ.com) one of the most successful silicon valley VC firms in history whose investment successes include Skype, Hotmail, Twitter, Path, Baidu, Tesla, SpaceX, Box, and hundreds of others.
Toro Orero is the Managing Partner of DDFCapital.
For more information please contact:
Toro Orero: hello@toroorero.com
Via Semaphore