One
of the Africa’s leading Internet service providers, Silvertree Internet
Holdings, has bought over the Nigerian price comparison site TopCheck for an undisclosed amount, reports
ITRealms.
TopCheck,
ITRealms gathered is a Nigeria’s
leading price comparison site for financial services offering free online
comparison for insurance products, loans, and broadband internet plans. While Silvertree
Internet Holding is a Cape Town based Internet holding company which owns and
operates Internet assets across Africa.
One
of the TopCheck founding fathers, Thomas Pilar, confirmed to ITRealms that the website recorded fast
growth in 2016, processing up to 3 billion Naira (10 million USD) in Gross Application
Value per month.
In addition, ITRealms gathered that TopCheck was founded
by European entrepreneurs Christian Wiesner Jose Figueiredo and Thomas Pilar in
2014, and headquartered in Lagos and Berlin. The startup, that dubs itself the
“Moneysupermarket of Africa”, had raised 1 million Euros in venture capital in
2015.
He
also noted, TopCheck will join Silvertree’s subsidiary Compare Africa Group
(CAG), is active in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, and offers online price
comparison of goods and services through various websites. The group owns
financial services websites Compareguru,
as well as product comparison site PriceCheck,
which was recently acquired from Naspers.
Silvertree
has been very active in acquiring Nigerian tech companies in the past, having
taken over Nigerian insured (dot) ng from Spark (2015) and deals site Dealdey
(2016) from Kinnevik.
“The
TopCheck team is excited to join forces with Compare Africa Group. Together, we
are forming Africa’s undisputed leader in price comparison”, said TopCheck
founder Thomas Pilar. “While our two companies had been competitors before, our
strategies are completely in line: to be the number one online destination to
acquire financial services in Africa. With TopCheck’s market position in
Nigeria, and Silvertree’s wide reach throughout Africa, we look forward to
further accelerating the company’s growth across the continent.”
Manuel
Koser, co-founder and MD of Silvertree, explained the enormous potential in the
comparison space: “We want to replicate the success of Check24 in the German
financial services and insurance comparison space. TopCheck joining our
portfolio is another step in building Africa’s largest comparison
conglomerate.”
With
this development, ITRealms also
gathered that Christian Wiesner and Thomas Pilar will step aside as managing
directors, but will continue to work with CAG as advisors. Ryan Marx, CAG’s MD,
will be heading TopCheck with immediate effect. “I am very happy that Christian
and Thomas will continue to advise Compare Africa Group with their vast
expertise in the Nigerian financial sector”, said Marx.
Nenye Dom/GEE
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