Last week in brief... Tech-enabled SMEs were the focus of most of last week's private capital deal activity in Africa. And most of them had a Kenya connection. Of the investors actually putting or planning on putting money to work, a couple were very high profile global firms. But, despite all that, it was generally a quieter week compared with some of those of the recent past.
Goldman Sachs led the group of investors backing the equity portion of a capital raise by Twiga Foods. In a solid vote of confidence in the business, the other members of the group had all backed the food and produce distribution company previously. They included TLcom Capital, Wamda Capital, the IFC, and Creadev while the debt portion was financed by OPIC and Alpha Mundi.
Twiga's plans for the fresh capital include pushing its expansion and development further. These include more investment in the firm’s proprietary technology and logistics assets which will support the roll-out of its distribution system in Kenya as well as lay the foundations for its expansion to other cities on the continent.
Netherlands-based Goodwell Investments is making its thirteenth investment on behalf of its uMunthu Fund. They're backing Sendy, an app-based on-demand delivery service headquartered in Nairobi, with $2 million in equity. The deal also gives Goodwell a presence on Sendy's board, giving them the chance to guide the firm's use of the fresh capital for their expansion plans.
Goodwell's fellow Dutch impact investment firm DOB Equity also announced its latest deal last week. The family office is backing Moringa School, a technology learning accelerator in Nairobi that provides digital and professional training services to businesses and individuals. The business has successfully tapped into the rapidly-growing demand for people with digital skills and will use the capital from this latest investment to capitalize further on the trend.
Staying in Kenya, TPG has been given the green light by Kenya’s Competition Authority to acquire a stake in East African dairy processor Maziwa. The deal, which is being transacted through a TPG special purpose vehicle, Pledge Holdco, sees the alternative investment giant buy a 33.9% stake in the business which distributes milk and milk-associated products throughout Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia.
In Morocco, a mezzanine deal that paves the way for an exit by private equity fund manager AfricInvest. Mezzanine specialist Vantage Capital is providing €8 million or approximately $8.9 million of funding to Equity Invest, a holding company for a portfolio of six Moroccan technology companies, structured as a 4-year loan with equity upside. The funding allows Equity Invest’s founder, Ali Bettahi, to buy back AfricInvest's stake in one of the firm's portfolio businesses.
The one item of Africa-related fundraising news last week took place in the venture space. Dutch development bank FMO has agreed to make a commitment to the Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund, a joint venture between Cathay Capital Private Equity and AfricInvest which was launched earlier this year. The fund is co-managed by a joint team from AfricInvest and Cathay Capital who look for innovative companies with strong growth track records and the potential to scale into international markets.
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 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 emerging and frontier markets. Mr. Cunningham holds a Bachelors degree from Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.
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