Silvertree Internet Holdings, the Cape Town-based consumer focused Internet platform, is today announcing it has recorded 330% p.a growth for 2015 to >$10m in revenue, its strongest year since operations began in 2013. Following this news, the company’s investment arm, Silvertree Capital, will start 2016 with a plan to deploy $10m [R158M] in investments, to new talented online companies to join its fast-expanding owner-operator portfolio.
Through its B2C ecommerce platforms, which include Click n Compare, Faithful to Nature, Cyber Cellar, Healthcart and recently-acquired PriceCheck, Silvertree Internet Holdings reached 25m unique consumers in Africa in 2015, a ~50% increase on the previous year.
Manuel Koser, SIH Founder and MD says: “Our meteoric growth in 2015 has been driven by execution-focused delivery across all of our portfolio companies, as well as a number of company acquisitions that are 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”
Paul Cook, SIH Founder and MD says: “Through our operations across the continent, we are seeing first-hand that the African consumer market creates ‘leapfrog’ tech opportunities that our portfolio companies, with their expertise and deep understanding of their markets, are poised to capitalise on and grow. Silvertree-owned companies are without a doubt best placed to service and grow the millions of African consumers who are migrating to online platforms, looking to source the most competitive prices for goods and services.”
Silvertree Internet Holdings operates an owner-operator model, focussing on scaling tech and commerce companies across small, fast growing niches. In 2015, they invested $5m [R75M] in company acquisitions and business building, and accelerated growth of their brands and new businesses to >10M USD in revenue. Through the company’s investment arm, Silvertree Capital, 2016 will see the exec team, that includes Koser, Peter Allerstorfer, Paul Cook & Andrew Whale, invest an additional $10m [R158M] into African entrepreneurs and ecommerce enterprises.
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. Peter Allerstorfer SIH Founder and MD concludes, “We are not an incubator, we are not a VC – we are in the business of building businesses, through accelerated, highly targeted investment and growth strategies, with proven businesses. We are entrepreneurs who invest in like-minded entrepreneurs. Our search for young, dynamic, hungry talent who want to scale faster and outpace their competitors, will be a key focus for us in 2016”.
