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. Actis acquires fibre business in South Africa for $140m
Actis, an investor of private capital into global emerging markets, has entered into agreements to acquire a controlling interest in Octotel, a fibre-to-the-home operator in South Africa for an enterprise value of R2.3 billion (about $140 million). At the same time, Actis signed agreements to acquire a non-controlling interest in RSAWEB, a leading internet service provider in South Africa. The transactions are subject to regulatory approval.
Octotel is a fibre network operator in the Western Cape region of South Africa. Founded in 2016, its open access fibre network has passed more than 175,000 premises. Through this network, Octotel provides line rental services to internet service providers on a fully vendor neutral basis allowing high speed data connectivity in homes and businesses across the region.
The businesses, both founded by Rob Gilmour and Mark Slingsby who will remain as shareholders, will continue to be run by the existing management teams. Caxton and CTP Publishers and Printers Limited and the Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Fund will fully exit their respective positions in the two entities.
2. Stripe to acquire Nigerian company Paystack
Nigerian payments company Paystack has agreed to be acquired by global payments leader Stripe to make online and offline payments easier for African businesses, and enable more global companies to enter the fast-growing region
Paystack powers payments for thousands of companies of all sizes – including FedEx, UPS and MTN – and processes over 50% of all online payments in Nigeria, Africa’s largest market.
3. Kalon Venture Partners and IDF invest in South Africa’s Carscan
Venture capital firm Kalon Venture Partners, IDF and an unnamed investor have invested in Carscan, a South African technology startup operating in the automotive industry.
Carscan is an augmented reality app embedded with artificial intelligence to give an immersive experience to create an accurate, reliable, agnostic, complete and traceable digital record of a car. Carscan helps automotive ecosystems to buy, sell, rent, service, insure, finance and auction cars with confidence by eliminating fraud, governance and industry risks. The digital application allows anyone to assess and extract details of a car in less than a minute, expediting the insurance claim process from weeks to minutes, alleviating all the frustration and time wastage usually experienced.
4. Goodwell launches PE fund for Belgian investors seeking exposure to Africa
Goodwell Investments has launched a Belgian fund for investments in the inclusive economy in sub-Saharan Africa. The Goodwell Impact Privak fund was set up in response to the strong interest of several Belgian investors – particularly wealthy individuals and families – for an investment fund that would provide venture capital to fast-growing companies in the inclusive economy on the African continent.
The Goodwell Impact Privak is a so-called feeder fund. Investors can pool investments and jointly participate through the Privak in the larger Goodwel-managed uMunthu fund. The €100 million uMunthu fund is fully focused on inclusive companies in sub-Saharan Africa. The Goodwell Impact Privak has already received multiple commitments from professional investors and is open to investments from €250,000.
5. Namibia: Eos Capital launches agriculture fund
Namibian private equity fund manager Eos Capital aims to raise N$500 million (about $30.3 million) for its new Euphrates Agri Fund, according to a report by The Namibian.
The fund aims to build a diversified portfolio of Namibian agriculture assets.
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