News
+1
May 5, 2026
•
5 min read
14 Cape Town Founders Who Raised R100 Million+ In The Last Few Years
Fourteen Cape Town founders have collectively raised over R9 billion ($520M+) in venture funding. Three have exited to international acquirers. The list spans fintech, clean energy, digital insurance, agriculture, transport data, manufacturing AI, and environmental tech.
News
+1
Apr 29, 2026
•
3 min read
The Rise and Fall of Crypto Arbitrage in South Africa
For nearly a decade, South Africans exploited a quirk of the country's apartheid-era exchange controls to make consistent, low-risk money: buy crypto cheaply offshore, sell it at a premium locally, repeat. Spreads once hit 30%. They're now 1%, the two biggest players have shut down within months of each other, and new legislation will formally bring crypto under exchange controls for the first time.
News
+1
Apr 27, 2026
•
5 min read
From 12.7% Fees to R30 Billion Exits: The Rise of Cross-Border Payments in SA
Moving money across African borders used to be slow, expensive and dominated by legacy players. In the space of a few years, SA-founded companies built infrastructure that processes billions, attracted the world's largest acquirers, and produced the largest stablecoin acquisition ever recorded: a R30 billion sale to Mastercard. This is how it happened, and what comes next.
News
+2
Apr 24, 2026
•
2 min read
The Rise of Consumer Fraud in South Africa – And Why the Old Rules No Longer Apply
Consumer fraud in South Africa rose 86% last year. Nearly 98,000 cases. R1.9 billion in losses. The primary driver is social engineering, and AI is making fraudulent contact nearly impossible for consumers to distinguish from the real thing.
News
+2
Apr 23, 2026
•
4 min read
How Shoprite's Market Cap Doubled Since Checkers Sixty60
In November 2019, Shoprite was dealing with an SAP disaster and a depressed share price. That same month, it launched Checkers Sixty60. Six years later, Sixty60 does R18.9 billion in annual sales, has fulfilled 100 million+ orders, and Shoprite's market cap has roughly doubled, from around R68 billion to over R150 billion.
News
+1
Apr 21, 2026
•
2 min read
AI Can't Fix Education in Africa, Because It’s Solving The Wrong Problem
Taptic, the free study platform built for African learners, reached 3.6 million sessions across seven countries in 2025. Its founder, Veer Gosai, has a specific, data-backed argument for why the AI platforms flooding the edtech market are solving the wrong problem.
News
+1
Apr 15, 2026
•
5 min read
Everyone Is Using AI: Now Meet The SA Venture Studios Building It
Most of SA's AI story in 2026 has been about adoption: Banks deploying fraud detection, startups bolting on AI features and enterprises running pilots. But a smaller group has decided to build AI itself, not just use it. As far as we can tell, only three South African venture studios are doing exactly that, each with a different model for creating AI companies and products from the ground up.
News
+3
Apr 14, 2026
•
5 min read
200 SA Startups Raised Funding in Covid: Where Are They Now?
Between 2020 and 2021, over 200 South African startups raised funding in what became the biggest deal period in SA startup history. The total capital deployed ran into the billions of rands. Five years on, the clearest verdict from the data is this: the companies that built infrastructure for businesses survived and scaled, and the companies that bet on permanent shifts in consumer behaviour mostly didn't.
News
+1
Apr 8, 2026
•
4 min read
One SA Founder Builds a New AI Agent Every Day – Here Are Five Using AI in Ways You Didn't Expect
The global AI conversation is dominated by billion-dollar labs. But some of the most creative applications right now are coming from South African founders who aren't trying to build the next foundation model. They're playing, experimenting, shipping, and in at least one case, measuring their entire company's output in tokens. Here are five worth watching.
News
+4
Apr 8, 2026
•
8 min read
96% of Africa's Mobile Money Fraud Is Caught by Customer Complaints, Not Systems – FinTech Needs to Fix That
South Africa lost R2.7 billion to banking fraud in 2024 as digital fraud attempts nearly doubled year-on-year. And across the continent, the GSMA reports that the vast majority of mobile money fraud is still detected because a customer picks up the phone, not because a system flags it. Orca Fraud, a Cape Town startup monitoring $5 billion in monthly transactions, argues the fix isn't better tools at individual companies. It's shared intelligence between them.
News
+1
Mar 27, 2026
•
5 min read
LIV Golf South Africa Generated R800M+ in Four Days – Here's What That Means for SA
More than 100,000 fans. Over R800 million in estimated economic impact. The biggest professional golf tournament in South African history. And before the final putt dropped, organisers confirmed they'd be back in 2027.
News
+1
Mar 25, 2026
•
4 min read
Littlefish Got All Three of SA's Biggest Banks on Its Platform: Now It Just Raised $9.5M
Johannesburg-based littlefish has raised a $9.5 million Series A funding, led by Partech to scale its merchant operating system across Africa. Standard Bank, FNB, and Absa (all three of South Africa's Tier 1 banks) are already clients. Monthly recurring revenue has grown 30x since the seed round.
News
+1
Mar 24, 2026
•
4 min read
Happy Pay Raises $5M – Its Model: Advertising Pays for Your Credit, Not You
Cape Town-based Happy Pay has closed a $5 million (R84M) seed round led by Partech, the global VC firm with over $2.5 billion under management. The round brings Happy Pay's total funding to approximately $7.5 million. The company charges consumers zero interest, zero fees and zero deposit. Instead, an advertising network subsidises the cost of credit.
News
+2
Mar 20, 2026
•
2 min read
The R30 Billion Pivot: How Three South Africans Built BVNK and Sold It to Mastercard
The BVNK Mastercard acquisition for R30 billion, roughly $1.8 billion, is a massive moment for South African entrepreneurship. It isn’t just about the money; it’s about three South Africans building a company in just five years and selling it to one of the biggest financial names on the planet. This deal is officially the largest stablecoin acquisition ever, even beating out Stripe’s billion-dollar purchase of Bridge.
News
+1
Mar 18, 2026
•
4 min read
Skynamo Acquisition: The Stellenbosch Field Sales Platform Processing $70M a Month Just Got Acquired by ERP Giant Klipboard
Klipboard, a UK-headquartered ERP and business management software group with 55,000 customers in 74 countries, has acquired Skynamo, the Stellenbosch-built field sales platform used by nearly 1,000 manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors globally. The deal price was not disclosed. Founder Sam Clarke and the team stay on.
News
+2
Mar 16, 2026
•
5 min read
It's Not Who You Are, It's Who You're Paying: How Discovery Bank Cut EFT Fraud by 80%
Discovery Bank has reduced EFT fraud by 80% since October 2025, using an AI system that monitors 9.5 million data events daily and does something most fraud tools don't: it analyses the beneficiary, not just the sender. If people like you don't normally pay that recipient, or if that recipient has been flagged across Discovery's client base, the system intervenes. Medium risk gets a warning. High risk gets blocked.
