PE Round

Series C

Series A

Series D

Africa

Johannesburg

Series F

Series B

Series E

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LeapFrog Investments

LeapFrog Investments is a South African-Australian private equity firm that invests in high-growth financial services, healthcare and climate solutions companies in emerging markets in Africa and Asia.

Nairobi

Debt Financing

Sun King

Renewables

CleanTech

Energy

Manufacturing

Sun King sells, installs and finances solar home systems for the 1.8 billion off-grid and under-electrified consumers.

Cape Town

JUMO

Fintech

Banking

Payment

Finance

Insurance

JUMO is a financial technology company that offers banking services.

Lagos

Interswitch

Interswitch is an integrated digital payments and commerce company designed to make payments an easy and enjoyable experience.

African payments company Interswitch has secured a $110 million joint investment from LeapFrog Investments and Tana Africa Capital to scale its digital payment services across the continent, the two private investment firms said in a statement Wednesday.

Interswitch didn’t confirm the amount it received from the firms. “The exact terms of the transaction haven’t been disclosed. We can’t comment on that for now,” a spokesperson for the company told TechCrunch when asked about the investment and Interswitch’s new valuation.

However, Interswitch Group CEO Mitchell Elegbe, in a statement, said the company was “excited to welcome LeapFrog and Tana on board, as we continue our work to advance the future of the African payments landscape.”

This news is coming almost three years since Interswitch’s last disclosed funding round, when Visa paid $200 million for a 20% stake in the company. At $1 billion (its last known valuation), Interswitch is one of Africa’s largest electronic payments and infrastructure companies. The fintech powers much of the rails for Nigeria’s online banking system and is well known for its point-of-sale terminals, online consumer payment platforms, Quickteller and Verve, the biggest domestic debit card scheme in Africa (issuing over 35 million active cards since launch).

Interswitch receives $110M investment from LeapFrog and Tana Africa Capital

JUMO, a technology company building next-generation financial services for emerging market entrepreneurs, today announced the successful raise of US$55 million in debt and equity funding. This will support JUMO’s expansion into new markets and the launch of new products.

The funding round introduced new investors to join existing investors such as Goldman Sachs, Odey Asset Management and Leapfrog Investments.

JUMO secures US$55 million from new and existing investors

Asia’s fintech scene is poised to get a little larger after Jumo, a company that offers loans to the unbanked in Africa, revealed plans to expand into the continent. To get the ball rolling, Jumo has opened an office in Singapore to lead the way and landed a massive $52 million investment led by banking giant Goldman Sachs to fuel the growth.

The new round takes Jumo to $90 million raised from investors. While Goldman is the lead — and standout name — the round also saw participation from existing backers that include Proparco — which is attached to the French Development Agency — Finnfund, Vostok Emerging Finance, Gemcorp Capital, and LeapFrog Investments.

Africa’s Jumo raises $52M led by Goldman to bring its fintech services to Asia

Sun King, a provider of off-grid solar energy products in Africa and Asia, has secured a $70 million equity investment led by LeapFrog Investments. It’s an extension of the $260 million Series D round the solar company announced this April, which was led by BeyondNetZero, the climate investing venture of General Atlantic and M&G Investments’ Catalyst and Arch Emerging Markets Partners. Thus, Sun King has closed its Series D round at $330 million and as a result, raised over $550 million in debt and equity since its inception.

Many African households and communities cannot access affordable and reliable solar technology, limiting their ability to generate their electricity and reducing their reliance on grid-based power. Direct-to-consumer, pay-as-you-go (PAYG) solar distribution networks are offered by businesses like Sun King, enabling households and individuals to get electricity on the cheap.

Sun King asserts to be the largest of this kind globally. According to the company, it has delivered solar energy to 165,000 homes per month across eight African countries — and in Kenya, where it has operated for over a decade, over 1 in 5 people use its product for light and power, accounting for 22 million Kenyans served to date. On a much larger scale, Sun King pointed out that since its founding in 2007 by chief executive officer Patrick Walsh and Anish Thakkar, its products have provided light and power to 95 million people throughout its African and Asian markets, including Cameroon, Mozambique, and Togo, three countries it recently expanded into. The solar energy company has also provided more than $500 million in solar purchase finance through a network of over 20,000 field agents, 36% of whom are women.

“We are proud that LeapFrog is investing in Sun King to expand access to energy with renewable solar power,” said Thakkar. “LeapFrog brings a wealth of experience meeting the needs of customers in the countries where we are working to make solar energy solutions easily accessible to everyone.”

LeapFrog Investments

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LeapFrog Investments

Funding Deals, by Startup Growth Stage

Funding Deals, by Region

No. of Portfolio Companies

Total No. of Investments Globally, by Year

We Invest in Startups in the Following Stages

Statistics

Sectors we invest in

Top 3 sectors we invest in

Portfolio Companies or Investments

About

Legal

Social Media

Portfolio Companies
or Investments