1. Aisha Pandor
Aisha Pandor, has employed 6000 domestic workers in four years with the SweepSouth app
Vital Stats:
- Business: SweepSouth
- Industry: Housekeeping services
- Established: 2014
When award-winning geneticist, Aisha Pandor and her software engineer husband Alen Ribic struggled to find a domestic worker from referrals, listings and classifieds, they decided to launch a platform for others in the same position. SweepSouth was launch in 2014 with just four domestic workers, and has since employed over 6000 across South Africa. The household cleaning digital platform allows clients to hire a domestic worker for household cleaning at around R38 an hour. 65% to 80% of the rate and all tips from clients are the employee’s to keep.
Before co-founding SweepSouth, Pandor held the positions of associate in UCT’s management department and business analyst at Accenture. Some of her most notable awards include the Mail & Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans list in 2012 and SA Women in Science Award for her work in molecular genetics.
In 2015, SweepSouth became the first South African startup accepted into the Silicon Valley-based accelerator programme 500 Startups, earning them USD125 000 seed funding. In 2016 Pandor and Ribic, who’s the company’s CTO, raised R10 million funding from the First Rand Group and Vumela Fund. SweepSouth’s exponential growth continues as the company is estimated to have paid out over R30 million to SA domestic workers during the past year.
“I’m inspired personally by visionaries and risk-takers like Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and South Africa’s own Vinny Lingham. Women in SA who are captains of industry like Phuti Mahanyele, Khanyi Dhlomo and Wendy Luhabe are big role models.”