Last week in brief...Size-wise, there were some big private equity and venture capital deals in Africa last week. We lead with news o fEranove's latest transaction. The Utility group which is majority-owned by Emerging Capital Partnershas landed a significant chunk of capital from ECP Power & Water Holding, a new entity set up by the private equity firm in partnership wit hA.P. Moller Capital,DEG, and IFU. According to Reuters, the newly-created platform is putting $250 million to work in the business, making it the largest shareholder.
Silver Point Capitalnow owns four African casinos as part ofa deal to acquirea number of properties fromCaesars Entertainment. The Connecticut-based hedge fund is transacting the deal via platform company Metropolitan Gaming, which, following this deal, owns and operates 11 casinos in Europe and Africa. How much Metropolitan is paying for South Africa's Emerald Resort & Casino, Caesars Cairo, Ramses Cairo, and the Kings & Queens Casino hasn't yet been disclosed.
Nigeria-focused challenger bankKuda Technologieshas just wrapped up a quick inside Series B round,raising an additional $55 millionfrom its existing investors at a valuation of $500 million. According to reports, Kuda wasn't looking to raise capital when the Series B round was first initiated. The round was led byValar VenturesandTarget Global, both of whom had backed the startup's $25 million Series A in March.
The money will be used to support Kuda's growth, which has already been growing exponentially. The startup now caters to 1.4 billion retail and corporate customers in Nigeria, a huge jump from the 600,000 customers it reported in March.
Naspers Foundryis adding a second insuretech startup to its portfolio,leading an investment roundin South Africa-basedNaked. Between them, the investors are putting R160 million (or $11 million) to work in the firm. The other investors in the deal –YellowwoodsandHollard- had both backed the AI-driven insurance startup previously. Naked will use the capital to push its expansion plans, hiring more people, developing its technology, and exploring opportunities in markets outside South Africa.
In other venture news,EchoVC Partners,MSA Capital, andKepple Africa Venturesareinvesting $2.2 millionin a pre-seed round forWapi Pay, a payments startup headquartered in Kenya. The startup will use the capital to scale its payments business between Africa and Asia, providing more retail customers with the rapid transmission of remittances as real-time global cross-border payments. Wapi Pay has set itself the goal of transmitting more than $500 million in remittances by the end of next year.
TPGhas announceda multibillion-dollar first closefor a new global climate impact investment fund which was launched at the beginning of this year. TPG Rise Climate has raised $5.4 billion from a group of large institutional investors, and, unusually for a private equity fund, some leading multinationals.
The fund's strategy is to work with companies, entrepreneurs, and scientists at the forefront of innovation in climate adaptation and mitigation to develop a wide range of commercially viable climate technologies. The focus will be on five climate sub-sectors: clean energy, enabling solutions, decarbonized transport, greening industrials, and agriculture and natural solutions.
Barak Fund Managementis taking a number of stepsto re-orient itselfand maximize its returns as the pandemic recedes and markets start to recover. These include winding up three of its seven funds, launching two new private credit funds, and opening an office in Abu Dhabi.
The Mauritius-headquartered alternative investment firm has provided trade finance and alternative lending solutions to companies in Africa's agriculture and food security sectors since its launch in 2008. With the encouragement of a few of its investors, Barak is also launching two new private credit funds. Among those investors are several from the Middle East who are are expected to start making commitments to the funds once Barak opens its licensed office in Abu Dhabi.
And finally,Helios Fairfax Partnershas appointedMasai Ujiri, Vice-Chair and President of Basketball franchise Toronto Raptors,as an independent directorto its board. The basketball executive and former player became the first African general manager in professional sports ten years ago while working at the Denver Nuggets. In 2019, under his leadership, the Toronto Raptors became the first team outside the USA to win an NBA Championship. Two months ago, Helios Fairfax led an investment in NBA Africa, a new entity set up by the U.S.-based National Basketball Association to house its operations on the continent.
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,
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