Last week in brief…Big names and decent-sized deals characterized last week's private capital transactions in Africa last week. It's likely the biggest came to us courtesy of Ethos Private Equity who sold the 72% stake in promotional clothing and accessory company Kevro they bought for $108 million in 2012 to a consortium made up of RMB Corvest, RMB Ventures, Kevro's management and, you guessed it, Ethos. This time the deal was for their year-old Mid Market Fund, giving their 2011-vintage Fund VI and exit.
Towards the end of the week, The Carlyle Group announced that it is acquiring NOSA Group from MICROmega Holdings, a JSE-listed investment holding company, on behalf of its $698 million sub-Saharan Africa private equity fund. The fund is paying approximately R750 million or $56.5 million for the company which sells occupational health, safety and environmental risk management services and solutions to clients across multiple industry sectors. The deal, which will be the ninth for the fund, is expected to close early next year.
Pan-African venture capital investor CRE Venture Capital has led the $40 million Series C funding round for Andela, a company that recruits, trains and places software developers in corporations across all sectors. The capital will be used to fund Andela's expansion plans. The firm plans to open offices in two more African countries and double its developer base from the current level of 500 over the next 12 months. Investors in this and prior rounds include the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Omidyar Network and Spark Capital. The deal brings the total amount invested in Andela to $80 million so far.
M-KOPA announced it has secured $80 million in debt from a group of lenders to support its ongoing expansion plans. The commitments have been secured from several institutions including CDC, FMO, Norfund, Stanbic Bank, responsAbility, Symbiotics and Triodos Investment Management. M-KOPA will use the capital to finance the installation of 1 million pay-as-you-go solar systems over the next three years.
A trio of venture investors and several fintech-focused angel investors in the United States are backing Lendable’s Series A round. Between them, the group are investing $6.5 million in the round, which was led by KawiSafi Ventures. The other backers include Omidyar Network, Fenway Summer Ventures and Larry Rosenberger, Fair Isaac Corporation’s former CEO. As the firm uses the new funds to scale up its operations, roll out new products and expand into Tanzania and Rwanda, it expects to ramp up the pace of transactions to ten per quarter next year.
In fundraising news, the European Investment Bank has approved a $10 million commitment to the Cepheus Growth Capital Fund, the maiden private equity fund for Ethiopian fund manager, Cepheus Growth Capital. The fund, which is looking to raise a total of $100 million at final close, will target SME opportunities in Ethiopian manufacturing and services businesses.
As always, you can review these and other stories by clicking through to this week’s complete issue of Africa Capital Digest.
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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