South African cleaning service SweepSouth announced that it had acquired Egyptian business Filkhedma. The Egyptian start-up is the country’s leading home services marketplace and operates across three cities, and serves tens of thousands of customers with cleaning, maintenance, and beauty services.
With this acquisition, SweepSouth will become one of the few African start-ups operating in the continent’s four key tech ecosystems of South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, and Nigeria. CEO and co-founder of SweepSouth, Aisha Pandor, said the company was thrilled to have obtained Filkhdema.
Co-founder Alen Ribic said the two businesses are aligned not only in values and culture but with a passion for providing quality and trusted home services to those who need it most.
“We’ve proven our technology and operational expertise in numerous markets in sub-Saharan Africa, and this acquisition gives us the opportunity to extend that reach into Egypt, a huge market with millions of households. Coming together with the Filkhedma team represents the next phase of building SweepSouth into a global platform that will continue to expand our services not only on the continent but further abroad as well,” said Ribic.
CEO and founder of Filkhedma Omar Ramadan said he is happy with this incredible milestone and is excited to join forces with SweepSouth. “We already have well over 2 000 service providers on our platform, and we’re confident that with the backing of SweepSouth, we will be able to sign up many more and expand into neighbouring countries, too,” said Ramadan.
Commenting on the merger, Naspers Foundry Head Fabian Whate said: “This acquisition has the potential to yield significant synergies. Filkhedma is an excellent business and is aligned to SweepSouth’s ambitions to expand its service offering and gain access to high-growth markets across the region.
Egypt’s growing middle class and rising financial inclusion, and internet penetration offer huge opportunities for the combined home services platform of the two companies. Helping high-potential early-stage tech companies scale is central to what Naspers Foundry does, and we’re particularly excited about this milestone in SweepSouth’s journey.”
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