Vumela, a fund managed by FNB and Edge Growth, has recently acquired stakes in Nova Pioneer, an independent school network, and in Mobenzi, a mobile first technology company in South Africa.

The investment in Nova Pioneer is a R15m debt investment, whereas the investment in Mobenzi is a R16m equity investment.

Nova Pioneer is an independent school network offering pre-school through secondary education for students from ages 3 through 19. 

Their focus is to prepare the next generation of leaders and innovators through world-class teaching methods with an emphasis on 21st century skills.

Nova Pioneer currently offers a primary and secondary school in Ormonde, and pre-schools and primary schools in Midrand, Jackal Creek, and Paulshof, all based in Johannesburg. 

Nova Pioneer is part of the Nova Pioneer Education Group, which also operates in East Africa.

Nova Pioneer Kenya offers two secondary schools and a primary school.

Damany Gibbs, CFO at Nova Pioneer, said: ”We were keen to partner with a firm that understood our needs as an early stage growth business and was aligned with our mission. Vumela is a great fit to provide financial support to entrepreneurs, while maintaining a strong emphasis on social impact.” 

Edge Growth said there is a major undersupply in the South African education system and a significant growing market for private schooling in South Africa. 

This market is driven by the growth in the emerging and established middle class, and the decline of quality in the public school sector.

The expected impact of this investment is the creation of over 500 direct new permanent jobs and capacity for 15,000 learners over the next five years.

Richard Rose, Vumela Fund Head at Edge Growth, said: “Nova Pioneer represents exactly the kind of business Vumela was designed to back, having both the potential for high growth and creating significant social impact.”

Mobenzi is a mobile first technology company enabling greater efficiency in deploying donor funding to global social impact programmes.

It has developed scalable and configurable mobile technology platforms for frontline workers in over 40 countries in health, education, research, agriculture and other sectors. 

The use of Mobenzi software empowers them to add significant value to their underserved communities, and informs the decision makers with accurate, verifiable and real time data.

Kevin Blignaut, Investment Principal at Edge Growth, said that Vumela has partnered with Mobenzi due to the strong investment fundamentals and the talent, drive and dedication evident in the founders to build a company focused on delivering global impact. 

“The team at Mobenzi have built an SA based company creating both local and international impact and is motivated by a “not only for profit” philosophy, which comes through in their attitude to work and their strategic partnerships,” he said.

According to Edge Growth, there is increased focus on more efficient deployment of donor funding to social impact programmes.

This, combined with the inefficiencies of using paper based solutions, and the ubiquity of mobile devices worldwide, make mobile solutions ideal for community based frontline workers.

Andi Friedman, CEO of Mobenzi, added: “What really attracted us to Vumela is that we weren’t just looking for venture capital to grow our business. We were looking for a partner who is fundamentally aligned with our impact philosophy and was interested in more than just the bottom line.” 

“Although we managed to grow to a team of 20+ and reach profitability by bootstrapping – we knew that we needed funding and support to achieve our vision of becoming a global platform for the ICT4D sector. With the Vumela funding we plan to step up the investment in our core software platforms, primarily to enable organisations and implementation partners to configure solutions themselves, rather than relying on our team,” he said. 

“Where we’ve developed specific solutions in health and education which have already achieved significant traction, we intend to strengthen and expand these further. We ultimately want to see our platforms empower tens of thousands of frontline workers and millions of beneficiaries,” he said.

Both Mobenzi and Nova Pioneer have been identified as businesses with high growth potential, hence the companies will also benefit greatly from the support of Edge Growth’s 10X-e accelerator programme.

Vumela was established in 2009 by FNB Business Banking and Edge Growth to help alleviate poverty in South Africa by creating jobs through supporting the growth of SMEs. 

Vumela has R388m under management, from FirstRand and the Jobs Fund, and to date has deployed R175m to 15 early stage businesses, creating over 1000 permanent jobs, primarily for low to middle income individuals.