• South African startup SweepSouth, has acquired 100 per cent of Egypt-based marketplace for home services Filkhedma for an undisclosed sum.
• Founded in 2014 by Omar Ramadan, Filkhedma offers a wide range of services ranging from cleaning, maintenance, and beauty services through 2000 service partners.
• This acquisition will enable the startup to accelerate its expansion into the African market, while it will pave the way for SweepSouth to drive further into international markets including Egypt.
• Ramadan will be part of the executive team of the combined entity and all employees of Filkhedma will stay on.
• Filkhedma raised investment from Cairo Angels earlier this month.
• This marks the latest exit for an Egypt-born startup. Others include Eventtus which was acquired by Bevy, and SWVL's IPO on Nasdaq planned via a SPAC.

Press release

South African startup SweepSouth, an online home services platform, has acquired Egyptian startup FilKhedma, a home services marketplace operating across three cities, to expand into the North African country.

Launched in 2014, SweepSouth is an online platform providing on-demand home cleaning services, operating across various South African cities. The startup has raised significant funding, including from Naspers, and is busy expanding across the rest of the continent.

As part of that, SweepSouth has acquired Egypt’s FilKhedma. Launched in 2014 by Omar Ramadan, FilKhedma is an online marketplace for home maintenance and improvement services such as plumbing, carpentry, electricity, air conditioning, painting and appliances.

The startup’s platform enables users to book home services, receive an exact time slot, get a quality guarantee and approve a price quotation before receiving one of its background-checked technicians. On the other side of the marketplace, it onboards technicians after testing their technical and customer service skills.

FilKhedma announced earlier this month it had raised a bridge round of funding from Cairo Angels as it prepares to announce a “significant milestone”, which it now emerges is its acquisition by SweepSouth.

“We are thrilled to have FilKhedma as part of the SweepSouth family,” said Aisha Pandor, CEO and co-founder of SweepSouth. “It’s not only their services that align with ours, but also their values and culture. Just like us, FilKhedma is passionate about providing quality and trusted home services, while creating work opportunities for those who need it most.”

Co-founder Alen Ribic said SweepSouth had proven its technology and operational expertise in numerous markets in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“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,” he said.

“We are happy with this incredible milestone and excited about joining forces with the SweepSouth team to fulfil our vision of empowering providers and delivering quality services in Africa and beyond,” Ramadan said.

“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.”