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The family offices of GT Ferreira and Laurie Dippenaar, the South African billionaires who co-founded banking group FirstRand, have joined a consortium that has bought LekkeSlaap, a local holiday accommodation platform that competes with Airbnb.
The consortium is co-led by investment firms Bellair Road Investment Partners and Janic Capital and includes Investec, LaunchBase Africa reported. The price was not disclosed.
The deal marks the exit of LekkeSlaap’s co-founders, Jonathan Womersley and Marcel van de Ghinste, after 17 years. Chief executive Frans Joubert and his management team are reinvesting in the business and will continue to run it.
A FirstRand veteran takes the chair
The new owners have brought in another figure from the FirstRand circle to oversee the business. Herman Bosman, chairman of insurer OUTsurance Group and former chief executive of RMB Holdings, has been appointed chairman of LekkeSlaap. Robert Paddock, co-founder of online education company GetSmarter, joins the board.
“LekkeSlaap is a great example of what South African entrepreneurs can build when they combine a strong customer proposition with persistence and ambition,” Bosman said.
Joubert said the company will invest more in technology and in adapting its platform to local markets as it expands across southern Africa.
From a garage to 40,000 listings
Womersley and Van de Ghinste started the business in 2009, launching travel site TravelGround.com from a garage with R12,000 in capital. In 2013, they created LekkeSlaap, South Africa’s first Afrikaans-language accommodation booking site.
The platform grew into one of Airbnb’s strongest local competitors after the US company entered South Africa in 2015. LekkeSlaap now lists more than 40,000 properties and has served about 9 million guests.
The investment adds a consumer technology business to the private holdings of Ferreira and Dippenaar. The two men founded Rand Consolidated Investments with Paul Harris in 1977 and built it into FirstRand, which owns First National Bank, Rand Merchant Bank and WesBank and is now Africa’s most valuable bank. Since stepping back from day-to-day roles, they have invested through their family offices in a range of South African businesses.
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