The 5 most popular stories on Africa Private Equity News this week

Here are summaries of the five most widely read stories this week on Africa Private Equity News.

1. Tana Africa Capital backs Kenyan furniture deal

KITEA Group, a furniture retailer in Morocco with 30 stores across 17 cities, alongside its long-standing partner Tana Africa Capital, a pan-African private equity firm, announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Furniture Palace, the leading furniture retailer in Kenya. This marks KITEA’s first acquisition in East Africa as it builds a pan-African furniture retail business serving all segments of the African consumer, from the mass market to luxury.

Founded in 2002, Furniture Palace currently operates in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Eldoret across nine showrooms and plans to expand its store network over the coming years. Furniture Palace provides a wide variety of home, décor, outdoor and office furniture to Kenyan consumers across its two brands – Furniture Palace and Big Save Furniture – addressing respectively the high end and mass market segments of the population.

2. M-KOPA secures $75m growth equity round

M-KOPA, the fintech platform that provides connected financing and digital financial services to underbanked consumers across four markets in Africa, announced its $75 million growth equity round. The round was led by Generation Investment Management and Broadscale Group, with participation from new investors including LocalGlobe’s Latitude Fund and HEPCO Capital Management. M-KOPA’s existing investors, CDC Group and LGT Lightrock also participated in the round. This capital injection brings M-KOPA’s total equity funding to $190 million. The news also coincides with M-KOPA providing financing to two million customers.

With the funding, M-KOPA plans to expand into additional countries, adding to its hubs in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and recently launched Ghana, to further scale its footprint across the continent. The company will also continue expanding its flexible daily and weekly payments model to go beyond asset financing, by scaling its financial services products such as health insurance, cash loans and BNPL merchant partnerships that have proven to be popular with customers.

3. IFC, RMB Ventures invest in South African student housing

To increase the supply of safe, affordable, quality student housing in South Africa, particularly for students from low-income households, IFC announced a partnership with Proparco (the French development finance institution), Bopa Moruo Private Equity and RMB Ventures.

The four announced a combined ZAR 516 million (about $36 million) equity investment in Respublica Group to help the company develop high-quality, affordable accommodation for thousands of students, and strengthen its environmental and social standards. Respublica Group owns and operates Respublica Student Living, South Africa’s leading student accommodation provider.

IFC, Proparco and, Bopa Moruo Private Equity, jointly with RMB Ventures through Bopa Ventures, will each provide Respublica with equity capital of ZAR 181.5 million (~US$12 million equivalent).

4. Alta Semper exits Egypt’s Macro Group through IPO

Alta Semper Capital LLP has successfully completed its exit from Egypt’s market-leading cosmeceuticals manufacturer, Macro Group Pharmaceuticals. Shares of Macro Group began trading on 10 February 2022 in an initial public offering under the symbol MCRO:CA on the Egyptian Exchange. The final offer price stood at EGP 4.85 per ordinary share or 2.8 billion EGP (equivalent to $178 million).

Since Macro Group became a portfolio holding of Alta Semper’s in 2017, Alta Semper has supported the company in nearly doubling its market share.

5. South African crypto platform raises $50m funding

VALR, a cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in South Africa, announced that it has raised $50 million (over R750 million) in Africa’s largest ever crypto funding round. This values the company at $240 million (R3.7 billion).

VALR’s oversubscribed series B equity funding round was led by Pantera Capital with participation from Alameda Research, Cadenza, CMT Digital, Coinbase Ventures, Distributed Global, GSR, Third Prime, Avon Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with the parent company of Fidelity Investments, along with existing investors Bittrex and 4Di Capital, and others.

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