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Digging for secrets? An Italian team claims to have discovered massive spiral structures stretching over 600 metres underneath the pyramids of Giza. The peer-reviewed research was done with SAR scans (Synthetic Aperture Radar), and they think there might be more chambers up to 2km beneath the famous pyramids. What? 🐪

A little closer to home, though, it’s another Fast Five Friday: 5 Things in SA startup — let’s go!

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Screen time is rising and SA leads the world…

We spend more than half our day (9 hours and 24 minutes) looking at screens, with just under 4 hours of that on social media: more than anywhere else on earth.

If you’re concerned about getting rectangular eyes, you could always add limits to your fav apps taking up most of your time, but these are pretty easy to bypass, not to mention rely heavily on our own self-restraint.

So we had a good laugh when we found Touch Grass, an app that lets you pick the apps that are most distracting to you, set a time limit on usage, and then force you outside to snap a pic of actual grass.

And don't bother trying to fool it by snapping a pic of other foliage. Touch Grass uses a computer vision AI to distinguish between outdoor grass and other plants… 

With the rise in work from anywhere, coffee shops need to cater to Elon’s beloved “laptop generation.” This means WiFi, plug points and even laptop-specific tables to lock in those digital workers.

A trick they’re missing though is a way to cancel ambient noise during video calls – cafes aren’t exactly libraries, you know. So when we ran into Air Offices co-founder Brendan at our last event in Stellenbosch, we were intrigued.

Air Offices lets you find and book closed-off boardroom spaces within some of Vida e Caffè’s 320 stores throughout Africa (a quiet place to take a virtual meeting or meet up in-person, off-site). This helps you ensure you’ve got a quiet spot to take that call.

It’s still early days for Air Offices, but we wouldn’t be surprised if more coffee shops start doing this real soon. 

South Africans' 27 Rights are enshrined in Chapter 2 of SA’s Constitution: The Bill of Rights. But our Gender-Based Violence is out of control – with women and children in townships most vulnerable.

Memeza is a community safety initiative that’s looking to change that with SA’s first public alarm system: Hit the panic button and it alerts everyone from friends and family to the neighbours, SAPS and CPF via SMS – giving everyone the exact coordinates.

When Memeza ran their pilot programme in Diepsloot in 2023, they saw a 100% prevention rate in houses where the alarms were installed, a 60% decrease in serious crimes, and tellingly a migration in crime hotspots (criminals went elsewhere). 

They’ve also deployed large quantities of their personal alarm that makes a sound as loud as fireworks (at 140 db – the threshold of pain), which led to a 67% decrease in sexual offences…

Around 60% of SA’s 200k annual first-year university students are dropping out (many due to finances)... Not to mention the stiff competition among the 1.9 million+ students vying for NSFAS funding…

It’s super strict: They won’t pay if you fail a funded model, potentially landing some SA students in hot water.

Enter Studii, the first-ever module protection cover (in the world) that helps students “re-fund” the payment of their failed modules for around R75 per month.

It doesn’t just give away “free money”, though… Studii looks at your participation mark when considering its payouts, motivating students to attend classes while providing some failsafe with that one pesky Statistics module until you pass.

PS: Marco Booyse, co-founder and CEO at Studii is part of our Open Collab Founder Network. Join us over at The Open Collab and build with founders like Marco.

International investors have made it clear that they need to see your IP outside of SA before they invest. However, navigating IP, tax, and exchange control laws has been complex, expensive, and slow until now.

That’s why Dommisse Attorneys has partnered with SA SME Fund, SAVCA, and Endeavor to open source a standardised IP Strategy for South African companies.

Now, any startup can follow a predictable, repeatable process to establish IP offshore — from day one.

✅ Protect your IP while keeping your SA-based team.

✅ Unlock international investment with a framework investors trust.

✅ Move faster, reduce costs, and scale globally.

This isn’t just guidance — it’s a game changer for startups looking to raise global capital.

🌿 Good Tyming? TymeBank is forging ahead on its mission to become SA’s biggest digital bank. It hit 10.7 million customers at the end of last year, with deposits climbing from R6.3 billion to 6.9 billion in just 6 months. Nice to see.

🪄 Gee Wiz. Alphabet (Google’s Mom) announced its largest-ever (possibly) acquisition. It bought Israeli cybersecurity Wiz for a cool $32 billion, more than double the current record deal when Google took over Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2012. All cash nogals.

🤖 Meep. Morp. Zeep. Nvidia, Disney Research, and Google DeepMind are teaming up to develop Newton, a physics engine to simulate robotics movements IRL. Disney is set to use it to power Star Wars-inspired “cute little droids” for its theme parks. Again ask: What. Could. Go. Wrong…

🦄 AI Unicorns. 23 startups achieved unicorn status (reaching a coll $l billy valuation) in Q1 of this year. Nearly half of those are playing in the AI space, with 7 of the top 11 startups having a valuation between $1.6 billion and $2.8 billion being AI startups. Is this officially a thing now?

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with your own CTO for remarkable tech builds with Octoco, your own CFO for a fraction of the price with OCFO and 12 more vital startup tools & services.

Next up in our members-only founder network — The Open Collab.

27 March 18:000 — In-Person Event: Our first-ever JHB event is happening and it’s all about building a world-class company with AI — Network members get in free, non-members get your tickets here.

28 March 12:00 — An Open Collab Network Exclusive Masterclass: How to growth hack in SA with Ben Blaine from Neurabuild — Join The Open Collab to attend.

4 April 12:00 — An Open Collab Network Exclusive Masterclass: Marketing for scaling your startup with Kurt Schröder from Double Shift — Join The Open Collab to attend.

PLUS: When you join The Open Collab get access to expert sessions, more than 90 SA founders to network with and weekly online and offline network engagements.

👩🏻‍💻 Our friends over at Lula are looking for a whole host of software and data engineers. Great company with a great culture — so if you’re keen on a move, go check it out!

🎯 Some of the most exciting startups in SA have come out of the Octoco stable. If you are a hardware engineer looking to work with SA’s finest, go check out their openings here.

💡 On Tuesday, we covered FARO (ICYMI: Tuesday’s Open Letter feat. FARO), SA’s latest retail startup that uses tech to scale unlike anything this country has seen before, and they’re hiring a CTO here.

🦾 Merelda Wu (one of our guests at our upcoming event in Jozi)’s company, Melio AI, is hiring for various roles in AI. You can have a look here.

Hiring? Get in touch, and we will feature it here.

I start with an “M,” but I’m no map,

Helping you sell with just a quick tap.

Inventory, orders, I handle them all,

Restaurants and cafes, big or small.

In Tuesday’s FARO piece, we asked how you buy your clothing, and surprisingly most of us wait for the Birthday/Christmas haul to sort us out… 🤷

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🐊 I’ve got a brand, and I stick with it. (26%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ☑️ I walk into the first shop, buy the first thing, done. (12%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😎 Someone with better fashion sense shops for me. (15%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🎁 I wait for my Birthday/Christmas to sort me out for the year. (29%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🛍️ I might have a problem… (18%)

Your 2 cents…

Hey, yes give it a go and let us know how you find them, Isaac 💪.

Lol, Pdjan. Please, please tell us you’re wearing the same one right now 🤣.

Sweet, let us know when you do… 🛍️

Nice one, Mervyn. Ja, people often discount the value of trust. Big mistake, trust is everything 👔.

Seems like most people here are on board with that, Madelein 🧢.