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. Sun King lands additional investment of $70m led by LeapFrog
Sun King, the largest provider of solar energy products for off-grid homes in Africa and Asia, has received $70 million in equity investment in an extension of its series D round, led by LeapFrog Investments.
This investment is an extension of Sun King’s initial $260 million series D, which was led by General Atlantic’s BeyondNetZero and M&G Investments in April 2022. This extension includes $38 million of additional primary investment, which will support the company’s plans to make consumer-financed solar power available to the 1.8 billion consumers across Africa and Asia who lack access to reliable electricity. It comes as increasing global energy prices and rising food costs have widened the electricity access gap.
Sun King’s series D extension also includes additional secondary investment to complete the successful exit of all of Sun King’s prior institutional investors. Sun King’s founders retain voting control, and as part of the transaction, LeapFrog will join the board, which now includes representatives of other series-D investors General Atlantic and M&G Investments, as well as Prabha Sinha, the company’s first investor.
2. Sahel Capital exits Nigerian dairy processing company
Sahel Capital has exited L&Z Integrated Farms Limited, an integrated dairy processing company in Nigeria.
In February 2015, Sahel Capital, through its maiden fund, Fund for Agriculture Finance in Africa (FAFIN), invested in L&Z Integrated Farms Limited to support the company in expanding its business operations by increasing the capacity of its processing plant and dairy farm in Nigeria.
3. Amethis buys minority stake in express courier company
Private equity firm Amethis has announced the acquisition of a minority stake in the Globex Group, a major player in express courier, freight and transit solutions in Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa.
Founded in 1998 in Casablanca, Globex operates in Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa (Senegal and Cameroon) under the Fedex Express brand. The Group holds Fedex Express, Trade Logistics and TNT licences. The group also holds several licences from the customs authorities in Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa.
4. Ghana: PE firm backs insect protein business
Baylis Emerging Markets, an African markets private equity firm, announced that it has completed a growth equity investment in Legendary Foods Africa.
Legendary Foods has developed a unique sustainable farming system that delivers a resource-efficient and accessible form of protein – palm larvae – with technology and farming systems built in Ghana. Legendary Foods’s vertical farm system avoids the deforestation practices traditionally used in palm larvae harvesting, while ensuring the highest quality larvae. Palm larvae, traditionally widely consumed across West and Central Africa, are a highly nutritional source of protein, good fats, and many essential vitamins.
5. Nigeria: Aruwa Capital invests in furniture company
Aruwa Capital Management announced an investment into Taeillo, a Nigeria-based technology-enabled furniture company that locally manufactures and retails mass market and premium Afrocentric furniture and lifestyle products across various product categories, selling directly to its B2C and B2B customers through its e-commerce platform.
Founded in 2018, Taeillo launched as a custom furniture designer serving its B2B clientele, however, in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for the company to serve B2C customers who needed locally manufactured furniture pieces. The company took advantage of this opportunity and pivoted to a direct-to-consumer business with the launch of the Amakisi table at an affordable price point of ₦29,999/c. $85. The table quickly gained popularity due to its quality, elegant design and affordability, resulting in the company selling over 1,000 pieces of the Amakisi table in short period of time. Since then, demand for the company’s furniture has continued to increase rapidly, causing the team to expand into 10 additional product categories and into East Africa, to meet growing demand.