South African on-demand domestic cleaning startup SweepSouth has secured a spot in the renowned Silicon Valley-based accelerator programme, 500 Startups.
Not only has SweepSouth been awarded US$125 000 in seed funding and acceptance into the four-month mentorship programme, it’s also South Africa’s only startup to have been accepted by the global accelerator.
500 Startups is lead by entrepreneur and angel investor Dave McClure (pictured above with SweepSouth co-founder Alen Ribic) and has invested in over 1 000 companies within the last five years.
The VC aims to become the largest in the world and is backing startups from over 50 countries.
Some prominent 500 Startups investments include jobs marketplace TaskRabbit, cloud communications company Twilio and digital gift card service Gyft.
The focus of the next four months is clear — achieve exponential growth and present our achievements in front of some of the top investors and media houses in the world. Each week we are exposed to more impressive mentors and each week our, and their, expectations grow. Its exhilarating… in a terrifying way.
Founder of Gyft and renowned South African investor Vinny Lingham is also a backer of SweepSouth. In May this year, Lingham lead an undisclosed seed round with investment partner Llew Claasen, Pule Taukobong’s Africa Angels Network and Polo Leteka Radebe’s Identity Development Fund.
“We are meeting some of the smartest people in the industry who understand and have experience in taking a company like SweepSouth from thousands of transactions a month to hundreds of thousands,” says Ribic.
In October last year, the SweepSouth team went on a two-month trip to Silicon Valley after winning a pitching competition at local startup conference Simodisa. It was also named one of Africa’s top ten startups to pitch at Dublin Web Summit in 2014.
“We hope that the experiences and international backing we have from the 500 Startups team and our local investors will set SweepSouth up for a very prosperous future and help us further contribute to our country’s economy,” adds Pandor.