When Sticitt, an African fintech startup, recently announced closing an oversubscribed round, VC firm, NuState Capital Partners, dominated major headlines as the leading investor.
Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and running another office in Stellenbosch; the venture capital firm is reputed for investing in smart founders leading scalable solutions within the tech ecosystem.
“We invest in smart people with solutions that have positive social impact which are both growth and defensive in nature, and, ultimately, have the ability to generate outstanding returns for our stakeholders.”
The long-term investment firm, which is co-led by Francois Swart and Andre Brink, was founded in July, 2015.
Who is Franscois Swart? Who is Andre Brink?
Before the establishment of NuState Capital Partners, Francois Swart was a chartered accountant who served as an Executive Director in the fixed income, currencies and commodities division of Goldman Sachs International.
From his position at the company, he joined PSG Group as a corporate finance analyst where he was later appointed as CEO of Paladin Capital, the previously listed private equity company of PSG Group.
Like Franscois, Andre Brink joined Rand Merchant Bank to serve under the fixed income, currencies and commodities division.
When Andre left the bank as a head trader, he joined Laurium Capital, a leading hedge fund in South Africa, as an analyst and portfolio manager where he worked for four years.
Armed with well sheltered experience in accounting and portfolio management, the duo founded the equity venture at a time Africa was seeing the rise of startups by local tech entrepreneurs.
So what specific industry does NuState VP – after running for 6 years – invest? According to details available on the firm’s portfolio website, NuState VP has its interest across sectors to include education, healthcare, energy, agriculture, safety, specialised property, and water.
Funding history
NuState’s first notable investment round was in July, 2015, an equity investment in Little Ashford, a private pre-school group providing early childhood development services operating under the Little Ashford and FUNdamentals brands.
A year later, the equity venture added two more investments with Spescare in January 2016 and BrightBlack Energy in April.
While Spescare is a private hospital service provider focussed on providing sub-acute, convalescent, rehabilitation and transitional care programs, BrightBlack Energy, on the other hand, designs, builds, finances and operates renewable energy solutions for clients in the commercial and industrial sectors.
In April of same year, the VC also invested in Hall Core Water, an organisation that designs, builds, finances and operates ground water solutions for clients in the commercial and industrial sectors.
Aside the recent investment in Sticitt, the venture in 2018 funded Rubicon, a startup that was previously known as Symion, with interest in advancing transformative technology in emerging markets.
NuState’s culture
NuState seems to be a conservative VC, the one that takes its time before backing a startup, perhaps studying trends to identify metrics that can guarantee the scalability of a startup.
This is confirmed by the company’s portfolio statement on choice of startup.
“We partner with small businesses with a proven profitable model, big potential and in need of expansion capital.”
In Africa, the VC seeks to invest in talented entrepreneurs pursuing ambitious goals that are capable of creating exceptional long-term returns.
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