SweepSouth, Africa’s pioneer in using technology to provide on-demand and regular home cleaning services, has raised undisclosed amount of capital from local and global investors to accelerate its growth in the African continent.
SweepSouth is an online platform for booking, managing and paying for home cleaning services using a laptop, phone or tablet.
The platform makes it easy and convenient for anyone to book and pay for cleaning services, and connects clients with efficient, reliable and trustworthy cleaners.
SweepSouth’s home cleaning professionals have gone through a rigorous interview process and are experienced, reference- and background checked, criminal record-checked, and fully insured.
Its founders are Aisha Pandor and Alen Ribic. Pandor, SweepSouth’s CEO, has a PhD in Genetics and is a former management consultant with experience in HR management, strategy and operations.
Ribic, SweepSouth’s CTO has over a decade of experience in software engineering, particularly in developing highly scalable systems. For more on Pandor, read: Aisha Pandor Named One of Six Top Female Techies by World Economic Forum
Since SweepSouth’s last funding round, announced in early 2016, the home cleaning platform expanded into Durban and Pretoria, launched its native mobile app and grew its revenue by 6 times.
The company said in a statement that this track record of growth and consistent service delivery in newly launched territories, combined with its aggressive strategic growth targets of expanding outside of South Africa and creating work for 10,000 SweepStars within the next 12 months, has supported it in successfully closing its third funding round.
“We’re particularly excited about the strategic nature of our partnerships with our new incoming investors. Smollan’s reach – it operates in 36 international markets – will provide the perfect avenue to rapidly expand internationally.” says Pandor, SweepSouth Co-founder and CEO.
“From our very first meeting we had a wonderful synergy with Dave and Mike Smollan, and believe our shared values and combined strengths will result in a lot of great new innovation from SweepSouth.”
The funding comes from strategic investor Smollan, the international retail solutions company and associate of WPP and Advantage Solutions, as well as from Draper Dark Flow, the Silicon Valley VC Fund for Africa established by Tim Draper. Existing investors, Identity Development Fund Managers (via their Identity Future Fund) and Africa Angels Network (as CRE VC) also participated in the round, in addition to new incoming private investor Nkosinathi Maphumulo (DJ Black Coffee).
“DDF Capital brings its expertise in scaling tech, particularly in Africa, and DJ Black Coffee is an inspirational and influential local ambassador with a brand we’re proud to be associated with,” says Pandor.
The company has already created work opportunities for over 3,000 women who were previously unemployed and underemployed and recently reached the milestone of 1,000,000 hours of cleaning.
“This funding will lay the groundwork for our international and service expansion, helping us intensify our efforts to create work for thousands more, and positively impact even more people in additional African markets,” says Alen Ribic, Co-founder and the company’s CTO.
SweepSouth is founded on the belief that the home cleaning industry needed to be modernised through technology as well as a change in mindset towards the conviction that everyone deserves access to dignified work at decent pay.
