Aisha Pandor is a businesswoman and entrepreneur who created SweepSouth, the first African startup to offer a comprehensive home-cleaning service system through an app. The company founded by Pandor is also known as the “Uber of cleaning,” where “sweepstars” are connected with clients who need domestic cleaning, maintenance, moving assistance, and elderly care.
Aisha graduated with honors and was the first woman to complete a double degree on the same day at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Pandor pursued a PhD in Human Genetics alongside a postgraduate qualification in Business Administration. Along the way, she completed her thesis and received offers for several scholarships to fund her studies.
Before founding her tech startup, the South African entrepreneur was recognized with the “South African Women in Science” award following the launch of her own research, published in an international journal. She was selected among the 200 most important South African women, and Forbes, the business and industry magazine, listed her as one of the most relevant African millennials.
Aisha Pandor and the founding of her tech startup
In an interview, the entrepreneur explained what differentiates her startup and why it is classified as a technology company. Beyond emphasizing the “use of technology,” Pandor summarized that her company has an online platform through which the company’s workers deliver a high-quality service tailored to client needs.
Specifically, the scientist does not simply hire “domestic workers,” but calls her employees “sweepstars,” because they provide an excellent, high-quality service—one of the reasons Aisha founded her company in the first place. “Turning a frustration into an opportunity,” the entrepreneur summarized about her startup, referring to the challenge she faced when trying to find an optimal cleaning service.
How does it work? The client, through the online platform, books a cleaning service according to their needs and contacts a sweepstar directly through the app. Scheduling, payment, and conditions are handled within the platform. In this way, SweepSouth has become a pioneering African system, and anyone with an internet connection can use the service.
With this innovative proposal, SweepSouth became the first emerging company to join the prestigious list of 500 startups featured in Silicon Valley, where high-potential ventures connect and interact. The company was founded in 2014, offers more than 6,000 jobs, operates in multiple cities, reached more than 250,000 clients, and achieved access to more than 2.5 million households.
During an investor fundraising round, the company founded by Pandor received several million in venture capital, which enabled it to win an award for best South African startup. In 2019, in addition to raising external investments from other companies, SweepSouth became the first startup to receive investment from Naspers, a South African multinational technology company.
Aisha Pandor, the entrepreneur who promotes technology
On her official website, she has stated that she is “passionate about using technology to help society move forward.” In that same line, a few years ago, she founded Pandora Health, a platform that combines artificial intelligence with medical knowledge validated by professionals so that women can manage intestinal conditions or pain.
The platform is supported by gastroenterologists and scientists who brought the project to life and have helped thousands of patients. Pandora Health covers gut health issues and offers practices and solutions. On the website, they highlight the importance of gut health and emphasize it through four approaches adopted by the company.
Pandor continues as CEO at SweepSouth, leads Pandora Health, and has also worked as an angel investor in other African projects. An angel investor is someone who invests personal money in early-stage startups, aiming to receive an equity stake in return. Among the eight companies in which she invested, Aisha is a partner and co-founder in two.
She currently lives in San Francisco and stated that she “has spent the last decade building and supporting tech companies.” On her own page, Pandor encourages society to research more about her work and also offers mentorships. She also provides a view into her portfolio and her activity in other companies as an angel investor.
The scientist and business administrator has become an ideal tech entrepreneur. With SweepSouth, she has helped reshape the cleaning services industry with an innovative online platform. With Pandora Health, she has applied AI to improving gut health. And she continues backing high-potential African startups to keep driving technology on the continent.
