South African-based pan-African investment firm Silvertree Capital, an arm of consumer internet platform Silvertree Internet Holdings will start 2016 with a plan to deploy $10m [R158M] in investments, to new talented online companies to join its fast-expanding owner-operator portfolio.
Some of its investments include Click n Compare, Faithful to Nature, Cyber Cellar, Healthcart and the recently-acquired PriceCheck, which gave Silvertree Internet Holdings 25m unique consumers in Africa in 2015, a ~50% increase on the previous year and a 330% p.a growth for 2015 to >$10m in revenue, its strongest year since operations began in 2013.
In a statement, Manuel Koser, SIH Founder and MD says: “Our meteoric growth in 2015 has been driven by execution-focused delivery across all of our portfolio companies, as well as a number of company acquisitions that are already delivering positive returns.”
Koser adds that Silvertree Holdings job now is to build on the momentum to maintain its aggressive growth trajectory and cement its dominance in the African ecommerce and price comparison markets.
Silvertree Internet Holdings operates an owner-operator model, focussing on scaling tech and commerce companies across small, fast growing niches. In 2015, they invested $5m [R75M] in company acquisitions and business building, and accelerated growth of their brands and new businesses to >10M USD in revenue.
“Through our operations across the continent, we are seeing first-hand that the African consumer market creates ‘leapfrog’ tech opportunities that our portfolio companies, with their expertise and deep understanding of their markets, are poised to capitalise on and grow,” says Paul Cook, SIH Founder and MD.
In 2016, Silvertree Capital is searching for top tier talent in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria to invest in and work with.
