Last week in brief...While much of the action in Africa's private equity and venture capital markets took place at the southern end of the continent last week, we start this week with a portfolio company acquisition deal that is, per Bloomberg, worth as much as $500 million. WorldRemit, a global cross-border payments firm backed by several leading investors including Accel, LeapFrog Investments, and TCV, is acquiring Sendwave, an app-based remittances firm with significant market penetration in East and West Africa.

Between them, both companies sent approximately $7.5 billion in transfers in the 12 months ending in June, generating about $280 million in revenues, a 50% rise year over year. The opportunity to expand seems to be considerable - according to the World Bank, the fragmented $715 billion global remittances market is estimated to be growing at a compounded annual rate of 10%.

In another portfolio company-related deal, Durban-based fashion group Retailability has agreed to buy parts of Edgars, the 90-year old South African department store chain from Edcon, the troubled retail group currently in the throes of business rescue. How much the Metier-backed business is paying for the assets has not been revealed, although it would be safe to assume that Retailability is getting a good deal given Edcon's current circumstances.

Technology businesses were the objects of several investments last week. The largest, as far as we can tell, was for SparkMeter, a provider of grid management solutions to emerging markets. The firm closed its Series A round of financing, raising $12 million from a group of existing and first-time investors. The round was led by Clean Energy Ventures and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, both investors in SparkMeter's prior rounds, with participation from new investors Goodwell Investmentsand their partner, in West Africa, Alitheia Capital. The firm will use the capital to launch a new offering that allows large electricity distribution utilities to use smart grid data insights to improve their business operations.

Knife Capital is returning to make a follow-on investment in the DataProphet's Series A funding round. The venture capital investor first backed the AI startup in 2018. Now, in concert with theIndustrial Development Corporation of South Africa and Norican Group, a foundry engineering firm, the group is investing a total of $6 million in the round which will be used to firm up DataProphet's international footprint.

Staying in South Africa, GemCap is adding Linebooker, an online transport management business, to its portfolio of holdings. The deal marks the start of a push by the three-year-old company to expand its existing business and capture more market share both in South Africa and within sub-Saharan Africa. The financial terms of the transaction have not been made available.

Zebu Investments announced the third investment for the private equity firm's Africa Food Security Fund last week, taking a majority stake in IQ Logistica (IQL), a South African ag-tech company. IQL has developed a cloud-based platform that aggregates data tracing agricultural outputs and other key, related information as they make their way through the value chain. The deal is Zebu's first in the ag-tech sector.

In West Africa, CDC has announced a further investment in a sustainable forestry and timber firm it first backed in 2015. The DFI is investing $12 million in Miro Forestry, past of r $48 million round of funding being provided by CDC and three other investors. Since CDC's initial investment, Miro has planted an area equivalent to some 17,000 hectares of eucalyptus, teak, and acacia trees on its plantations in Ghana and Sierra Leone. Last week's investment round is aimed at supporting Miro's goal to expand its plantings to reach 25,000 hectares within the next 5 years.

We covered two Tanzanian deals last week. The larger of the two involved a new equipment financing firm, EF Africa Group (or EFAG), which has emerged from the acquisition of an existing equipment financer in Tanzania, EFTA, and has raised $12 million from KfW, Small Foundation, and the Mennonite Economic Development Associates. The capital will be used to support the firm's expansion, initially to Kenya, and then to other countries in East and Southern Africa.

DOB Equity is investing additional capital in Tanga Fresh, a dairy processor that will use the money to expand its production of long-life milk products, a product segment that is continuing to benefit from consumers' shift in demand away from fresh milk products. The family-backed impact investor has been involved with the business since 2007 and remains a firm believer in both its growth potential.

We end this summary with a fundraising item. Actis is adding a South Korean pension fund to its roster of LPs for Actis Energy 5, a green energy infrastructure fund. The National Pension Service is reportedly committing between $100 million and $200 million to the planned $4 billion private equity fund. Actis has already held the first close for the fund, garnering commitments totaling $2.9 billion from a group of twenty investors.

That's it for this week. As always, you can review these and other stories by clicking through to this week's preview edition of the newsletter.

Allan Cunningham

Allan Cunningham is a senior media executive who has spent the last 15 years of his career working for some of the world’s most respected M&A and Private Equity media companies including Dow Jones’s publications Private Equity Analyst and VentureWire and most recently, The Deal. He has built a number of successful digital and event content businesses, both subscription and sponsor-supported, delivering information and content-marketing services to clients in the M&A and broader deal ecosystem. He recently struck out on his own and launched Rowayton Press, a multi-platform media company focused on the private capital opportunities in

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