South African Venture Capital: Exit & Performance Analysis (Endeavor South Africa / SAVCA)

Summary

• In Scenario A, R2.014bn of invested capital returned R4.926bn in realised cash, a capital-weighted realised MOIC of 2.45x.p.5
• Scenario B gives a capital-weighted realised MOIC of 2.01x and Scenario C gives 2.25x.p.5
• The median holding period is 6 yrs, and 177 realised exits have been completed among the 1,142 companies funded since 2016.p.7
• Profitable exits make up 59.3% of outcomes with a 5.11 yrs average holding period, while losses make up 26.5% with 3.10 yrs.p.9
• South Africa's realised gross MOIC of 2.01–2.45× compares with 2.0–2.3× for the United States and 1.7–2.1× for Europe.p.10

Key insights

1. 43 deals were confirmed profitable but did not disclose an Exit Amount, and 32 were losses with an undisclosed Loss Amount.p.4
2. Column A is based on 131 deals with both Deal Amount and Exit Amount, while Columns B and C are based on 206 deals.p.6
3. The median exit occurs in Year 6, and future exits assume that 80% of remaining deals will have exited by year 7.p.7
4. SAVCA data suggest a second investment cycle from 2019 onward, with the first wave of related exits emerging from 2024 onwards.p.8
5. Break-even exits are the quickest at 2.78 yrs average, while write-offs account for 5.8% of exits at 3.55 yrs average.p.9
6. Benchmark ranges show India at 1.8–2.5×, Chile and Latin America at 1.5–2.0× and the United Kingdom at 2.2×.p.10
7. Of 226 exits in the dataset, 206 have capital investment values and 132 are classified as profitable.p.11
8. Of the 132 respondent-confirmed profitable exits, 88.6% included capital invested and of those 63.2% supplied both capital invested and capital returned.p.11