The two men who named a holiday-booking site after a good night's sleep have sold it. LekkeSlaap, from the Afrikaans phrase for "sleep well", went to a group of local investors on Thursday, ending the involvement of its founders, Marcel van de Ghinste and Jonathan Womersley. The sale covers the whole of Tripco, its parent company, and nobody has disclosed the price.
LekkeSlaap launched in 2013 as the country's first Afrikaans holiday-accommodation booking platform, but it did not stay Afrikaans for long. It quickly drew English-speaking travellers, local and international, and now runs in both languages. It did well enough to replace TravelGround, the founders' first booking site, as the company's main platform, and today it connects travellers with more than 40,000 places to stay in Southern Africa.
The garage, the R12,000 and Airbnb
The two founders met at UCT in 2001, while they were still studying. In 2009, as 25-year-old graduates, they launched TravelGround from a garage with R12,000 in start-up capital, and it listed 300 places to stay at launch.
Six years later Airbnb arrived in South Africa, which BusinessTech says posed a significant challenge to traditional accommodation platforms. LekkeSlaap is still one of the country's largest, and it has been named South Africa's Leading Online Travel Agency at the World Travel Awards for three years in a row.
Who is buying, and who is staying
The buyers are long-term money. Two firms lead the consortium: Bellair Road Investment Partners, founded in 2019 by Handre Daffue and Marcel Boezaart, and Janic Capital, the investment vehicle of the Dippenaar family, run by Adriaan Dippenaar. Alongside them are the Moolman Family Office, Investec and the Ferreira Family Office, which LekkeSlaap confirmed to TechCentral belongs to GT Ferreira, co-founder of Rand Merchant Bank and FirstRand. Womersley says the founders believe they "have found the right long-term owners for LekkeSlaap".
The managers are staying, and the board has two new names. Frans Joubert, the chief executive, and his executive team have put their own money in next to the consortium's and will keep running the business, and the company says nothing changes for guests, hosts or industry partners. Herman Bosman, who chairs the OUTsurance Group and Fortress Real Estate and once ran RMB Holdings, becomes chairman and has invested through Atelier Partners. Robert Paddock joins the board as well; he co-founded GetSmarter, the online education company sold to US-listed 2U for about R1.4 billion in 2017.
The plan is to expand further into Southern Africa and invest more in technology and localisation, up against Booking.com and Airbnb. Joubert's own line is broader: "Our ambition is simple: to put Africa on the map." For now, the map in the plan stops at Southern Africa.
