Crossfin, a South African fintech company, was purchased for $94.8 million by a group of investors.
Ethos’ Mid-Market Fund I (“EMMF I”) is leading the Consortium, which also includes the founding Crossfin senior management team, EMMF I Co-Investors, Ethos Artificial Intelligence Fund I, and prominent empowerment investor African Rainbow Capital (“Consortium”). Fairview Partners, an independent investment banking firm, served as the transaction’s financial advisor.
The deal is one of the largest private equity-led investments in the fintech sector in South Africa to date, giving the consortium access to an industry that has benefited from, and is expected to continue to benefit from, secular trends like digitalization and the proliferation of payment technologies, among other things.
Crossfin is an independent fintech platform based in South Africa that specializes in payments and smart funding. The present management team co-founded the company and has been in charge of it since its beginning.
“The deal signals a new chapter of growth and maturation for Crossfin,” said Dean Sparrow, CEO, and Anton Gaylard, CXO. We are pushing our mission of establishing and investing in outstanding fintech startups to grow a compelling and mutually beneficial fintech ecosystem to enable growth and efficiencies for economies in Africa and beyond with more growth funds invested in the business.
“As management, we see tremendous growth supported by secular tailwinds in payments, smart funding, and the larger fintech industry, and we’ve effectively re-invested 100% of the revenues from the sale of our interest back into the business.”
“We owe a debt of gratitude to our initial shareholders, Capital Eye Investments, the Multiply Group, and Andisa Partners, for their unwavering support and for enabling us to establish this appealing platform.”
“We also recognize the founders and executive management teams of the firms in our ecosystem for their tremendous labor and devotion.” We’re pleased about the prospect of accelerating growth and wealth generation with our new partners.
Capital Eye Investments and the Multiply Group, who have been anchor shareholders since 2017, will exit as part of the transaction.
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