Last week in brief...We start this week's wrap with an exit. Ninety One, (formerly Investec Asset Management) along with RMB Ventures, is selling part of the stake acquired by the Africa Private Equity Fund 2 in Kamoso Africa in 2017 to the Botswana Development Corporation. Between them, Ninety One and RMB Ventures still maintain a controlling stake in the business, while BDC now holds a 24% interest in the FMCG business.
China's Silk Road Fund has completed a deal first announced in June last year to acquire a significant stake in a renewable energy platform set up by ACWA Power. The state-owned investment fund now owns 49% of ACWA Power Renewable Energy Holding which owns wind and solar assets in several countries including South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco. Look out for future potential collaborations between the two firms.
Absa has made an investment in A2X Markets, a new stock exchange in South Africa. The investment is part of a capital raise launched by the A2X late last year and marks the first participation in the firm by a major South African banking group. As a licensed stock exchange offering companies a secondary listing venue, it already counts many of South Africa's top companies among its clients, including eight of the JSE's Top40 constituents, three Absa precious metal ETFs and two Investec ETNs.
Emerging Capital Partners is supporting an acquisition by Mukuru, one of its portfolio companies. The international money operator and remittance business is buying Zoona's operations in Malawi together with the technology systems that support them. The transaction helps Mukuru penetrate both the urban and rural markets in Malawi.
Venture Capital deals, particularly those with connections in North Africa, were a major feature of last week's deal activity. Instabug, a startup launched some eight years ago in Egypt, announced the close of its Series A round recently, which was led by notable Silicon Valley venture firm Accel. The deal marks the second investment by Accel in the firm, which also led an earlier investment round for Instabug in 2016.
In another follow-on investment, Algebra Ventures is back again, leading a group of existing and new investors investing in Brimore, another Egyptian startup. Brimore provides small and medium-sized manufacturers with access to a nationwide distribution platform via a network made up of a large number of individuals who sell consumer goods within their local communities and recruit and train others to sell as well.
Staying in Egypt, CVentures, a unit of Commercial International Bank, the country's largest private bank, has taken part in an investment round for Countingup, a British fintech. The bridge round has raised a total of £4 million (or about $4.85 million at current rates) from a group of investors led by ING Ventures. According to Countingup's CEO, the deal could potentially help the startup expand into Egypt.
Novastar Ventures has wrapped up fundraising for its second fund, closing with a nine figures final total with which to back early and growth-stage businesses in East and Anglophone West Africa. The fund drew strong support from the investors in Novastar's earlier fund - some 80% of them had backed Fund I - indicating a very solid vote of confidence in the team and its investment strategy.
We end with the news that Soros Economic Development Fund announced commitments to two women-led investment funds that target opportunities that advance economic and gender equity in Africa. Alitheia IDF is benefiting from a $10 million commitment to its Gender Smart fund which will back women-led and women-managed SMEs in high growth sectors on the continent.
And New York-based Women's World Banking Capital Partners' second fund is the beneficiary of $5 million from SEDF. The fund will invest between $5 million and $10 million in financial services companies across all emerging markets, including Africa.
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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