We are delighted to announce that Sanari Capital has won the special recognition award for 2021’s Technology Deal at this year’s Private Equity Africa (PEA) Awards for its investment in LightWare LiDAR.
This award recognises the remarkable talent that the African continent has to offer the world and emphasises the growing importance of technology and Africa’s role in this space. As a growth-stage private equity investment, Sanari partnered with an experienced management team to bring both the capital needed to land its international expansion and our approach to building businesses that are Sustainable, Scalable and Saleable (Sanari 3S Approach). The Sanari 3S Approach resonated with the LightWare management team that sought to expand aggressively but in a sustainable, disciplined and execution-focused manner.
Already established as a leading global player in the high growth LiDAR sensory technology space, LightWare gives ‘eyes to machines’, designing and manufacturing the world’s smallest and lightest precision LiDAR systems for use in drones, robots, IoT and industrial IoT, smart cities and other applications. Sanari’s investment expands this African tech on a world platform, with rapid innovation and new product rollout to meet the ever-growing number of use cases for small LiDARs.
“We cannot be more pleased with this partnership and recall how challenging it was to pull off this investment in the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The economic crisis midway through the transaction introduced tremendous uncertainties. Although the company experienced short term supply and demand disruptions and travel restrictions slowed momentum, we were able to assess that the medium to long term net impact would be positive for the company as digitisation and the low-touch economy accelerated globally. Much gratitude to the team at Sanari, our supportive investors and the incredible executives at LightWare LiDAR; James Portman, Nadia Nilsen and Philip Constantine.” says Samantha Pokroy, CEO of Sanari Capital.
In their 10th year, the PEA awards are the ultimate accolade of success in the African Private Equity industry, garnering participation from key players across the continent. The final winners were selected by an independent panel of 20 judges which included representation from CDC, DEG, IFC, EBRD, fund-of-funds and family offices.
The winners were announced virtually on 30 November 2021. The PEA 2021 Awards Gala Dinner – which will jointly celebrate the 2020 and 2021 award winners – will be held in London in 2022.
Click here for a complete list of 2021 winners.
