Notable Investments by Goldman Sachs

The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) is one of America’s largest financial services companies. The company provides diversified investment management through its investment banking, wealth management, and private equity divisions. Goldman Sachs services individuals and corporations with a preference for high-net-worth investors and large enterprises. The company's private equity arm is particularly active and, judging by its portfolio, is focused on acquiring some of the most exciting technology, retail, and financing companies in America. Here are four of Goldman's notable investments.

Goldman Sachs has invested in the African online retailer Jumia. Since November 2014, the company has raised a total of $823.7 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. As of February 2019, the company was looking forward to an initial public offering (IPO) in New York, which was expected to value the company around $1.5 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg.

Jumia is based in Nigeria and has experienced seven years of rapid growth across Africa as an online retailer offering similar services as Amazon. The company has operations in 13 countries and is one of just three African unicorns—companies valued at over $1 billion—according to CB Insights.

The company claims that it has plenty of potential to grow because two-thirds of Africa’s 1.2 billion people do not have access to the internet. Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. hope to extend connectivity to populations in remote and poor areas of Africa. 

Since 2009, Square has raised a total of $590.5 million in financing, some of which has come from Goldman Sachs. Square is predominantly a mobile payment company based in San Francisco, California. The company produces software and hardware payments products such as Square Contactless and Chip Reader, Square Stand, Square Register, and Square Magstripe Reader. Square also provides financing to small businesses and Cash App, a person-to-person payments service. The company had its IPO in November 2015 when it was valued at around $2.9 billion, according to Fortune.

Judo Capital is a more recent addition to the portfolio of Goldman Sachs. The company's first funding round was in August 2018. Since, then the company has raised $553.7 milion in funding, according to Crunchbase. In April 2019, Judo Capital secured a $100 million debt facility from Goldman Sachs. In November of 2018, Credit Suisse provided the company a $350 million debt facility, according to Financial Review. The company provides financing and banking services to small and mid-sized businesses in Australia.

Marqueta is based in Oakland, California and offers technology and a platform for card issuing and processing. According to Reuters, Goldman Sachs was part of a $45 million investment round in Marqeta in April 2018 and for $250 million in March 2019. This latest round of funding gives the company a valuation of around $1.9 billion, according to TechCrunch. Marqeta has raised a total of $355.3 million as of April 2019.

According to Reuters, Goldman Sacks is attempting to offset its poor trading results by adding more retail operations and technology startups to its portfolio.