The impact investing industry has grown in stature in Southern Africa over the last ten years, and impact investors the world over have developed a particular interest in Sub-Saharan Africa due to the region's substantial potential for investments that deliver promising social and environmental impact.
Cape Town is making a name for itself as the start-up capital of South Africa. Recent developments continue to bolster its potential, not only as Africa’s leading location for venture capital, but also as the potential global hub for early-stage funding of emerging market entrepreneurs and start-ups.
The financial sector is in the process of going through two major legislative reforms. The Financial Markets Act Review is currently underway. It will play a critical part in shaping the responsibilities and approach of South Africa’s regulators overseeing financial markets in future.
South Africa’s venture capital (VC) investors source most of their funding for VC deals from within the region and have limited interaction with international investors and limited experience with international syndication.
The private equity and venture capital industries in the world's most innovative nations play a critical role in bolstering their economic growth, competitiveness and job creation. The venture capital industry in South Africa is still relatively young and characterised by less institutional capital and smaller deal sizes. Most of their funding comes from corporations and high-net-worth individuals but not institutions.
Trade is one of the most important drivers of economic growth for any nation. Africa continues to experience hampered economic growth in part due to not maximising the growth opportunities of trade. However, there has been a shift in the ‘aid mindset’ as traditional donor countries have begun to focus on boosting African economic growth via increased trade, rather than through aid and donations. This has increased the focus on private capital investments into African economies.
"South Africa... is the most unequal country in the world, ranking first among 164 countries," the Washington-based institution said in a report called Inequality in Southern Africa. Based on Gini coefficients of consumption (or income) per capita, South Africa, the largest country in SACU, is the most unequal country in the world, ranking first among 164 countries in the World Bank’s global poverty database.
The My Smart City citizen's platform launched in July this year is a free, disruptive tech platform funded by private equity. It allows citizens to engage all service providers within their city to log and keep track of service delivery issues.
Cliqtech and Metropolitan GetUp have joined forces to allow young South African adults to create and customise their Wills online. Cliqtech is the fiduciary tech (fidtech) firm behind online Wills platform SmartWill.
Cape Town and Johannesburg residents can now make use of a free mobile and desktop-based platform for some of their service delivery needs. The My Smart City platform was developed by software development and business consulting firm Acumen Software. It allows residents to report potholes, monitor power or water outages, communicate with local municipal officials, and raise a petition, to name a few services.
Zulzi is a South African success story. Started in 2013 as an ecommerce platform to sell books and electronics, it has grown into an online powerhouse which supports the Checkers’ Sixty60 service. Over the last few years Zulzi has delivered groceries of over R400 million and is now processing over 1,500 orders daily.
The general perception that corporate SA’s compliance with ESD is very good is “flawed”, say Anton Baumann and Mark Fitzjohn, executive directors of black-owned investment company, Empowerment Capital.
Two innovative legal tech startups, Legal Lens and BriefCo, held by Cycad Group have received an undisclosed amount of funding from Imvelo Ventures, a local venture capital firm founded by Capitec Bank and Empowerment Capital Investment Partners.
SA's economy may have been ravaged by the pandemic and years of sluggish growth, but small to medium-sized start-ups are still springing up, especially in the technology and fintech sectors. South African venture capital group Empowerment Capital Investment Partners - founded in 2015 by Anton Baumann and Mark Fitzjohn - said its investment companies Andzani Ventures, Imvelo Ventures and Thuthuka Nathi Ventures approved and placed R162m into 13 local start-ups between July 2019 and this month, with a further R32.5m "approved for placement in the coming weeks" in three new companies.
Local venture capital company Imvelo Ventures has opened funding applications to innovative fintech entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses. Up to ten successful applicants will receive a share of R1 million funding, business strategy and strategic marketing mentoring, access to extensive business networks, and strong B-BBEE credentials.
Xago, an innovative South African Fintech that focuses on an all-inclusive approach to moving money rapidly, has confirmed receipt of a substantial investment from Imvelo Ventures, a venture capital investment company founded by Capitec Bank and Empowerment Capital Investment Partners, and will continue to expand its cryptocurrency services and products into African markets for both businesses and individual clients.
Acumen Software has just concluded R 14 million Series A investments with Andzani Ventures and Imvelo Ventures, which are backed by Sappi Southern Africa and Capitec Bank, respectively to raise growth capital for its purposes of implementing its My Smart City citizen platform, with the support of Empowerment Capital Investment Partners My Smart City is a citizen platform that provides the public with an environment to engage all of the service providers in the city; this includes, Municipal Services, Emergency Services, Private Services, and Entertainment Services in The City.
The University of the Western Cape (UWC) has received one of its greatest gifts to celebrate its 60th anniversary – a multi-million rand partnership with Imvelo Ventures to empower a new generation of leaders who will transform the business world. Imvelo Ventures – a venture capital investment company founded by Capitec Bank and Empowerment Capital Investment Partners – will invest approximately R11-million over three years to the university’s data science programmes.
Imvelo Ventures a Venture Capital investment company founded by Capitec Bank and Empowerment Capital Investment Partners (www.empowerment.capital) has invested into MoneyWorks, a fintech start-up, to ensure a much-needed solution to the meagre financing currently available in the market to SMEs. The MoneyWorks solution has become even more important as SMEs and large businesses alike start their recovery from the economic shutdown caused by the covid -19 pandemic.
Enterprise and Supplier Development is arguably the most important element on the B-BBEE scorecard. The DTI recognised this by suggesting a higher emphasis on this element in the amended BEE Codes. Over 40 points of the BEE Scorecard are allocated to this element and it...
Many business owners dream of taking their business globally. While that seems a distant reality for some, the internet, social media and online communities have reduced thousands of kilometres to mere megabytes of data.
After more than 20 years of democracy, we can argue that we have made little, if any, inroads into addressing unemployment and our economy is still largely reliant on the influx of financial capital to supplement our trade account deficits and very soon may face the ills of our past with what many seem imminent of a sovereign rating downgrade.
Objectively valuing your business is an arduous task for any entrepreneur. Whereas valuators see a functioning business, you see a brainchild that had you awake for sleepless nights years-on-end to get to this point.
This blog has been inspired by a book written by Daryl Collins titled with the same heading. In this book, the author’s opening line is that public awareness of global inequality has been heightened over the years. The question, any caring and thinking person should ask, if...
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