How Aisha Pandor built SweepSouth into one of Africa's leading on-demand home services companies

In Summary

• Aisha Pandor holds a PhD in Human Genetics and completed a UCT business certificate on the same day she graduated.
• SweepSouth hit one million bookings by November 2020 and raised R30 million from Napers Foundry in 2019.
• In 2022, SweepSouth closed an $11 million round led by Alitheia IDF to support Africa-wide expansion, with later strategic market exits.

Deep Dive!!

Lagos, Nigeria, Friday, November 14- Aisha Pandor’s entrepreneurial journey began with a personal inconvenience that revealed a structural flaw in African urban economies. 

In 2013, while searching for a domestic helper, she discovered a fragmented sector where workers lacked stable employment and households faced unreliable, unaccountable service.

This gap inspired SweepSouth, an on-demand home-services platform launched in 2014 with her husband, Alen Ribic, that formalises domestic work through digital booking, secure payments, and verified worker profiles offering both convenience for households and fair, traceable income for workers.

Under Pandor’s leadership, SweepSouth grew from a South African startup into a Pan-African operation spanning Kenya, Nigeria, and Egypt. The company exemplifies how digital innovation can transform informal labour markets into sustainable, scalable ecosystems while delivering measurable social impact. Pandor’s scientific training, consulting experience, and Pan-African perspective shaped a model that merges technology with empowerment.

This article explores how Aisha Pandor built SweepSouth into one of Africa’s leading home-services companies, covering her background, the company’s inspiration, the problems it addresses, the milestones achieved, and lessons for African entrepreneurs.

Early Life, Education, and Experience

Aisha R. Pandor was born into one of South Africa’s most intellectually and politically engaged families. Her mother, Dr. Naledi Pandor, is a long-serving cabinet minister who has held multiple portfolios including Education, Science and Technology, and International Relations, while her father, Sharif Pandor, is an academic. Her lineage includes influential anti-apartheid thinkers like her great-grandfather, Z.K. Matthews, who was one of South Africa’s earliest Black professors and a key ANC intellectual, and her grandfather, Joe Matthews, who was a political activist and lawyer. Much of Aisha’s early life was shaped by her family’s exile during apartheid, which saw her mother complete part of her education in Botswana before the family later returned to South Africa. Aisha’s own childhood between Botswana and Cape Town exposed her early to politics, education, and global perspectives that would later shape her worldview.

Although public sources do not document the exact primary or secondary schools she attended, it is clear she completed her early education in South Africa after her family’s return from exile. Her upbringing emphasized academic excellence, intellectual independence, and social responsibility values reinforced by her family’s educational and political background. Growing up in such an environment nurtured both scientific curiosity and a civic consciousness that would later inform her entrepreneurial motivations.

Pandor pursued higher education at the University of Cape Town (UCT), where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Biochemistry in 2005, followed by a PhD in Human Genetics in 2012. Her doctoral research on muscle development disorders required analytical precision and experimental discipline. This scientific training later helped shape her structured, data-driven approach to business leadership and product-building. During this period, she also completed a postgraduate business management certificate at UCT’s Graduate School of Business making her the first student in UCT history to receive two qualifications from different faculties on the same graduation day. The milestone reflected her growing interest in combining scientific rigor with business strategy.

Throughout her academic journey, Pandor was recognized as a high-achieving scholar. She was named among the Mail & Guardian’s “Top 200 Young South Africans” and received the South African Women in Science Award, highlighting her ability to excel across science, business, and leadership. Her education demonstrated both intellectual versatility and a clear orientation toward research with real-world impact.

After completing her studies, Pandor moved from academia into management consulting at Accenture South Africa, where she worked for about two years. She advised clients in telecommunications and mining, focusing on human resources, operations, and digital transformation. This exposure deepened her understanding of organizational systems and the challenges of workforce management, while reinforcing how technology can streamline service delivery. Her consulting experience, combined with her scientific background, equipped her with analytical precision, problem-solving skills, and a strong foundation in process optimization.

Before entering consulting, Pandor had already developed a rigorous research mindset through her doctoral work at UCT’s Division of Human Genetics. This period taught her discipline, persistence, and the ability to navigate uncertainty skills she later applied directly to experimentation and product iteration in her startup journey.

After Accenture, Aisha Pandor and her husband, Alen Ribic, made the bold decision to leave corporate life to pursue entrepreneurship. Public interviews and founder case studies note that they sold personal assets and temporarily moved in with family to fund their early startup development. This marked a major turning point: a shift from corporate stability to building a tech platform from the ground up. She often describes this phase as a leap of faith driven by a desire to solve a deeply social problem using technology.

By the time she entered entrepreneurship, Pandor had accumulated a diverse mix of skills spanning science, management, research, and strategy. This multidimensional background formed the foundation for her work in reshaping South Africa’s informal labor market and building one of the continent’s most recognized tech platforms.

Inspiration to Start SweepSouth

Aisha Pandor’s inspiration for SweepSouth arose from a very personal and immediate problem in late 2013. During the December holidays, her domestic worker needed time off, leaving Pandor and her husband, Alen Ribic, with no reliable way to find temporary help. This seemingly routine difficulty highlighted a structural issue in the domestic services sector: urban households relied on informal, uncoordinated networks for essential tasks like cleaning, childcare, and home maintenance. These networks were often inefficient, untrustworthy, and lacked any digital verification or accountability mechanisms. Pandor recognized that this problem was not isolated; thousands of households and domestic workers faced the same challenges across South Africa. She later explained in an interview with BizNews, “We've always believed in the power of technology to really change the world at scale…”

Pandor’s academic and professional background directly shaped how she approached the problem. Having completed a PhD in Human Genetics at the University of Cape Town, alongside a postgraduate business management certificate, she possessed a combination of analytical rigor, problem-solving ability, and operational insight. Her experience at Accenture South Africa strengthened her understanding of business processes and scalable digital systems. She also noted that seeing the efficiency of platforms like Uber made her consider how similar models could be applied to domestic services.

Clarifying the co-founder dynamic, Ribic’s technical skills played a crucial role in shaping the early product. With a background in software engineering and product development, he built the first version of the SweepSouth platform, complementing Pandora’s strategic, operational, and social-impact vision. This partnership strengthened the foundation of the company during its earliest, most experimental stages between 2013 and 2014. She said in the same interview, “So we resigned from our jobs. I resigned along with my husband, partner, and co-founder in the business”

The decision to found SweepSouth was also influenced by Pandora’s upbringing. She grew up in a family deeply rooted in social justice and Pan-African ideals, with parents who emphasized education, civic responsibility, and using one’s skills to uplift others. Her mother, Dr. Naledi Pandor, instilled in her the belief that intellectual work should serve society. This ethos became central to SweepSouth’s mission: a platform built not only to provide convenience for households but also to formalize and dignify domestic labor by offering transparency, stable income, and professional recognition.

By 2014, these combined factors personal experience, professional expertise, and a strong social purpose led Pandor and Ribic to launch SweepSouth. Conceived as a digital marketplace connecting verified domestic-service professionals to households, the platform sought to formalize a sector historically dominated by informal arrangements. From the start, SweepSouth integrated easy booking and payments for users while offering workers consistent income, skill development opportunities, and structured work environments. Pandor’s approach demonstrated a deliberate synthesis of technological innovation and social impact, setting the stage for SweepSouth’s rapid growth in South Africa and its expansion into other African markets.

What Problem SweepSouth Solves 

SweepSouth was founded to address structural inefficiencies in South Africa’s domestic services sector, a market where nearly 861,000 domestic workers operate and the majority work informally, with about 39% earning below the national minimum wage. The platform was designed not merely as a convenience tool for households, but as a system to formalize domestic labor, standardize service delivery, and improve worker welfare. The problems it tackles span operational, economic, and social dimensions.

1. Informality of domestic work: Before SweepSouth, most domestic workers were employed through informal networks without contracts, consistent pay, or legal protections. This left workers vulnerable to exploitation and households uncertain about service reliability. SweepSouth introduced verified worker profiles, formalized payment systems, and standardized work agreements.
2. Lack of accessibility and trust for households: Urban families often struggled to find reliable domestic workers, particularly for short-term or urgent needs. SweepSouth solved this by creating a digital platform where workers’ identities, ratings, and availability are transparent, reducing friction in hiring.
3. Irregular income for workers: Domestic workers traditionally earned inconsistent wages and lacked opportunities for predictable employment a major issue in a sector where almost half earn below baseline wage expectations. SweepSouth introduced a booking system that allows workers to access regular clients, track hours digitally, and receive timely payments.
4. Absence of formal recognition and career development: Many domestic workers had no formal work history or career path, limiting future employment or skill progression. SweepSouth addressed this by creating digital records of completed work, client ratings, and service history that workers can use to demonstrate experience.
5. Operational inefficiencies in the sector: Households and service providers often lost time negotiating schedules, coordinating payments, or managing cancellations. SweepSouth’s automated scheduling, payments, and notification systems streamline the entire process, reducing wasted effort and improving reliability.
6. Limited scalability and cross-market access: Informal domestic work networks are largely local and cannot scale efficiently. SweepSouth enables workers and households to connect across broader urban markets, allowing expansion while maintaining service standards.

By addressing these problems simultaneously, SweepSouth transformed an underdeveloped sector into a structured, data-driven marketplace bridging economic inequality and elevating domestic work into a recognized, stable, and professionalized labor space.

Milestones Achieved to Date

SweepSouth was founded in 2014 by Aisha Pandor and her husband, Alen Ribic, to formalize domestic work and connect households with reliable home-services professionals. In its first year, the platform quickly gained traction, handling thousands of bookings per month by 2015. This early adoption demonstrated both demand and the viability of a technology-driven solution for a sector that had historically been informal and fragmented. It also reflected a broader shift happening across Africa at the time, when mobile-first platforms in transport, payments, and logistics were proving that technology could scale rapidly even in traditionally informal markets. By 2017, SweepSouth had facilitated tens of thousands of bookings and paid out substantial earnings to registered domestic workers, known as “SweepStars,” laying a strong foundation for scale and social impact.

Institutional investors soon recognized SweepSouth’s potential. In 2019, the company secured a R30 million investment from Napers Foundry, providing capital to improve technology, expand the team, and scale operations. By 2020, SweepSouth had reached a milestone of one million bookings, marking significant adoption in South Africa’s urban households and formalizing employment for thousands of domestic workers, ensuring verified profiles and digital work records.

The company’s growth continued with strategic funding and pan-African ambitions. In September 2022, SweepSouth raised US$11 million in a Series B round led by Alitheia IDF to accelerate regional growth and enhance platform capabilities. However, not all expansions were sustained. SweepSouth withdrew operations from Nigeria in November 2022 due to challenging market conditions, while maintaining and strengthening its presence in other African markets.

By 2024, SweepSouth had diversified its service offerings. A brand refresh in September 2024 introduced additional services, including garden maintenance, car washing, pool cleaning, and window cleaning. According to SweepSouth’s reports, the majority of SweepStars are women, many aged between their mid-20s and early 40s, and a significant portion serve as the primary earners in their households. This highlights the platform’s social impact on women’s economic empowerment.

SweepSouth’s commitment to innovation and impact was recognized nationally in 2025, when the company won first place in the “Digital Platforms” category of the SA Tech Challenge, an award acknowledging excellence in innovation, scalability, and social impact.

The range of 2,000 monthly bookings in 2015 to one million total bookings in 2020, strategic funding rounds, pan-African expansion, and service diversification show that SweepSouth has consistently achieved measurable milestones. The company demonstrates how technology can formalize informal labor sectors, generate social impact, and build scalable, sustainable African businesses.

Lessons for Other African Entrepreneurs

SweepSouth’s growth and Aisha Pandor’s entrepreneurial journey offer several practical lessons for founders across the continent who want to build businesses that scale, create jobs, and solve real problems.

1. Identify real, lived problems: SweepSouth began because Pandor needed temporary domestic help and couldn’t find any quickly. This personal frustration showed her a widespread gap affecting households and domestic workers.
2. Combine expertise across disciplines: Pandora’s background in genetics and business, paired with Ribic’s tech and product experience, helped them design a platform that was operationally sound and technologically strong. Their complementary skills made execution faster and decisions sharper.
3. Formalise informal markets: SweepSouth created verified profiles, digital payment systems, and transparent work histories. This formalization helped domestic workers gain dignity, consistent income, and digital proof of employment, something the informal sector rarely offered.
4. Focus on social impact alongside profit: SweepSouth structured its model so workers earned more, had predictable schedules, and received greater job recognition. This approach attracted investors who prioritize inclusive growth and social impact.
5. Scale strategically and adapt: SweepSouth entered markets like Kenya and Nigeria but later withdrew when operating conditions proved unsustainable. The move showed that scaling is not just about expansion but also knowing when to pause, pivot, or exit.
6. Leverage funding to accelerate growth: The R30 million investment from Napers Foundry and the US$11 million Series B round strengthened operations, technology, and market entry. Pandor’s fundraising showed that clear metrics and social impact can unlock high-caliber investors.
7. Diversify services to increase relevance: Between 2024 and 2025, SweepSouth rolled out services such as childcare, elder-care, office cleaning, and garden maintenance. The expansion proved that complementary offerings can deepen customer loyalty and broaden income streams.
8. Document impact with data: SweepSouth consistently tracks worker demographics, earnings, and bookings. This helped refine their operations and strengthened their credibility with investors, regulators, and customers.

Together, these lessons show how African founders can merge lived experience, disciplined execution, and social impact to build resilient businesses. SweepSouth’s broader legacy lies in how it redefined domestic work, especially for women, by giving thousands formal recognition, digital work records, and stable income. The company’s trajectory continues to influence how African startups approach informal-sector innovation, worker protection, and tech-enabled service delivery.

SweepSouth’s story demonstrates that African innovation thrives where empathy meets execution. It highlights how identifying real problems, leveraging local talent, and combining social impact with technology can create solutions that transform industries and communities.

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