Shell-shocked {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? Turns out not everyone in China loves robots. A 70-year-old granny had a heated argument with one on the street; she even called the police and had it escorted away. 🤣

In Today’s Open Letter

SA consumers buy around R7.7bn’s worth of coffee beans per year, but then waste 99% of their biomass – this local player uses it to make your braai greener and last much longer…

We love ourselves a good cuppa at The Open Letter.

Whether it’s one of the fastest-growing coffee chains in SA, how tracking your daily coffee intake can help you save more or even a local eco-friendly packaging company turning used coffee cups into swing tags, you had us at coffee.

But we also like efficiency

Now, most of us don't give that wet, compressed puck of espresso grounds from our latest cup a second thought – it’s mos organic.

But SA consumes around 40k tons of the stuff per year. And, in reality, when those grounds hit South African landfills, they don't compost. They get buried under tons of plastic and rubble instead, where they go anaerobic and begin belching methane (a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere).

And while SA has certainly made some progress in recycling plastic, we still send roughly 90% of our 122 million tonnes of waste to the dump. And when nearly 23 million citizens start their day with a coffee, that adds up to a staggering amount of wet waste that we are essentially paying to bury.

But here’s where it gets really crazy: When you make a cup of coffee, you are only extracting around 1% of the bean's biomass, with the rest ending up in the knock box. There must be more we can do with it…

The local startup getting energy from coffee’s remaining 99%

Bio Bean is a circular innovation company that turns used coffee grounds into high-performance solid fuels and nutrient-rich soil enhancers.

Based out of Ballito, they’ve spotted the opportunity in the residue, understanding that coffee grounds are actually more energy-dense than wood. When processed correctly, coffee-based fuel logs (which they call Charffee) burn 20% hotter and 35% longer than traditional wood, leaving behind very little ash – that’s also great for your garden’s soil.

To date, they’ve diverted 400 tons (that’s like 80 African elephants) of used coffee grounds from local landfills, turning them into nearly 100’000 charffee products.

An SA tech winner

And as a testament to their accomplishments, Bio Bean & Charfee took 2nd place at the G20 Tech Challenge 2025 in the circular economy category.

The future of South African business might not be about finding something new, but properly using the 99% we’ve been throwing away.

We’re picking up a bag of coffee fire logs for the weekend and watching this space…

Looking for a model that acts more like a coworker than a chatbot? OpenAI’s newly released GPT-5.4 merges Codex-level coding with knowledge work, computer use and tool orchestration in one model. Read more here.

Running multiple AI agents already? Paperclip organises Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other agents into an actual company structure with roles, budgets, and task tracking. Check it out here.

Struggling to prompt creative AI tools properly? Domain Maps offers visual cheat sheets for AI image gen, UX, motion graphics, and game design terminology. Try it here.

Who says only big brands can have fancy WhatsApp tech?

Most new and small businesses don’t have time to sit through demos or figure out clunky enterprise software. You’ve got products to ship, customers to talk to, and zero patience for red tape.

But what if you could just… start?

That’s why flEX by Chat Inc is such a game-changer — the first pure SaaS WhatsApp marketing platform in South Africa. No subscriptions. No platform fees. No gatekeeping.

You sign up. Connect your WhatsApp channel. Buy credits and start sending.

Whether you’re a boutique store, local brand, or solo founder, flEX gives you the same broadcast and automation tools the big brands use — without needing a whole IT team to run it.

👀 Surveying The Land. Local research platform Yazi has closed its first institutional funding round led by 3 Capital Ventures. The round closed at a R30 million ($1.6M) pre-money valuation. Well done, Tim, Mzwandile, and the Yazi team.

🦾 SA’s Big Labour Questions. The People Insider pointed out an interesting fact around SA’s proposed new labour laws and AI; specifically, why there’s no mention of it if it’s already affecting so many companies.

💬 ”SARS Coming After These Taxpayers” (on WhatsApp). SARS has joined the WhatsApp group chat, using the platform to help it recover some of SA’s R646 billion outstanding tax debt through its Project AmaBillions initiative. Next up, they’ll be sliding into your Insta DMs.

💸 Who All Raised This Month? Wanna know which ventures raised so far in March and the VCs backing them? Check out this handy roundup of March funding rounds in SA.

🚀 Building Something Early-Stage? Get R40k+ in tools, 1-on-1 strategy sessions, cloud support and community to help you get there — join The Founder Collab.

🚅 The Train Has Not Left The Station. Turns out AI-powered isn't the bees' knees after all. A recent study found that AI-powered subscription apps are struggling to keep their subscribers compared to non-AI counterparts, churning them 30% faster. Interesting.

🤖 Banking On A New Face. Standard Bank unveiled its very own programmable humanoid robot, Kukura. Built by Unitree Robotics, Kukura’s role (in its own words) “is to demonstrate present and future technologies.”

🎯 Leads Unlocked. Former Springbok Bob Skinstad has the presence but not the time to build his LinkedIn. So FDC turned his profile into a lead engine that’s driven 33.5 million impressions, 70k+ new followers and at least 2 quality business leads per month.*

* From our partners. Find all the best service providers for your business in our Founder Stack.

Yesterday, we showed you Bantu Stall’s better team experiences, asking about the worst thing about off-site retreats. Most despise having to catch up on work…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🛌 Fighting with the pillow in your room to get a good night’s sleep. (9%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🥳 Forced hangs with people you barely even talk to. (23%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🧑‍💻 Catching up on work in the breaks between sessions. (35%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧘 The guru they hired who defs got his talk from ChatGPT. (18%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💀 So. Much. Corporate. Jargon. (15%)

South Africa remains Africa’s largest economy — but the gap is narrowing.

Africa’s economic leaderboard has evolved over the past four decades:

💡 South Africa still tops the chart, with an economy worth about $445.6 billion in 2026, built on finance, mining, manufacturing and infrastructure.

💡 Egypt ($399.5bn) and Nigeria ($354.5bn) have rapidly closed the gap, reflecting strong population growth and expanding domestic markets.

💡 Newer growth engines are emerging: Morocco, Kenya, Ethiopia and Côte d’Ivoire are climbing the ranks as industrialisation, urbanisation and regional trade accelerate.

For decades, South Africa’s advantage came from early investment in infrastructure, financial services and higher education. But as other African economies scale up, the continent’s growth story is becoming far more competitive and diversified.

🖊️ Tool to Try: Draw On Screen lets you annotate on your screen in meetings/recordings.

🐕 That’s Interesting: A miniature dachshund named Valerie survived 529 days in the Australian wilderness before finally being found alive in 2025.

🏎️ Next Level: Red Bull demonstrates how different race vehicles are started.

🐍 Hack: A visual guide to the longest snakes on Earth.

🗳️ Wow Site: Devito 2028 is a parody campaign site dedicated to making Danny DeVito the next US president.