LekkeSlaap sold to South African investors as its two co-founders exit
The 2013-launched booking platform, which lists more than 40,000 properties, stays under local ownership and keeps CEO Frans Joubert in charge.
LekkeSlaap, the South African accommodation booking platform, has been acquired by a consortium of local investors, and its two co-founders, Jonathan Womersley and Marcel van de Ghinste, have exited the business along with several long-standing shareholders.
As Tech in Africa reported on 13 October, the acquisition was jointly led by the private investment firms Bellair Road Investment Partners and Janic Capital, alongside the Ferreira Family Office, the Moolman Family Office and Investec. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
What the transaction changes is ownership rather than operations. LekkeSlaap continues to trade under its existing leadership team, headed by chief executive officer Frans Joubert, and members of that management team have invested alongside the acquiring consortium. Herman Bosman, whose previous leadership roles include OUTsurance, RMB Holdings and RMI Holdings, has been appointed chairman. Robert Paddock, co-founder of GetSmarter and Valenture Institute, has joined the board. Both men took part in the deal as investors.
The new shareholders say they intend to back the next stage of expansion through technology improvements, stronger partnerships and continued investment in the booking service.
LekkeSlaap’s history runs from a travel technology startup established in 2009 to the accommodation platform’s official launch in 2013. It has since grown into one of Southern Africa’s recognised online accommodation marketplaces, listing more than 40,000 properties across hotels, guesthouses, holiday homes and resorts, and it says it has facilitated bookings for over nine million guests since it was established.
For the people who use it at both ends of the transaction, the numbers are the point. A platform carrying 40,000-odd properties is a distribution channel for a long tail of small South African accommodation owners, the guesthouse and self-catering operators who depend on online marketplaces to reach travellers they would never reach directly. The nine million guest figure is the measure of how much traffic that channel has carried over roughly a decade of trading.
The deal also keeps the business under South African ownership, in a local travel technology sector where that is not always the outcome. South African founders in this space have often sold to larger international platforms rather than to domestic capital, and the presence of a listed bank in Investec alongside two family offices and two private investment firms makes this a local balance sheet buying a local asset.
What is not yet known is what the new owners paid, what the co-founders’ exit means for the shareholding structure beyond the departures already confirmed, and how far the promised technology investment will extend. None of that was disclosed in the announcement.
What is on the record is the shape of the company after the deal: a South African-owned booking platform, run by the same chief executive, chaired by a new appointment, with its management team now holding equity alongside the consortium that bought it.
