By DION HENRICK in Cape Town
CAPE TOWN, (CAJ News) – SILVERTREE Internet Holdings (SIH), the Cape Town-based consumer focused internet platform, will invest US$10 million (R158 million) to new talented online companies to join its owner-operator portfolio.
The financing will be made through its investment arm, Silverstar Capital.
This follows the former announcing it had recorded 330 percent per annum growth for 2015 to $10 million in revenue, its strongest year since operations began in 2013.
Through its ecommerce platforms, which include Click n Compare, Faithful to Nature, Cyber Cellar, Healthcart and recently-acquired PriceCheck, Silvertree Internet Holdings reached 25 million unique consumers in Africa in 2015.
This represents a 50 percent increase on the previous year.
Manuel Koser, SIH Founder and Managing Director, said the growth had been driven by execution-focused delivery across all of its portfolio companies.
He also lauded a number of company acquisitions that were already delivering positive returns.
“Our job now is to build on this momentum to maintain our aggressive growth trajectory and cement our dominance in the African ecommerce and price comparison markets,” said Koser.
Fellow executive, Paul Cook, said through their operations across the continent, they were seeing first-hand the African consumer market created ample opportunities.
Silvertree Internet Holdings operates an owner-operator model, focussing on scaling tech and commerce companies across small, fast growing niches.
In 2015, it invested $5 million in company acquisitions and business building.
Searching for top tier talent to invest in and work with will be a key focus for the Silvertree team in 2016, starting in South Africa, but with an eye on other emerging markets on the continent, specifically Nigeria and Kenya.
– CAJ News