Cool plunge {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? Scientists created a robot that can fly, dive into the ocean, swim underwater and then pop out and fly again. Modelled after seabirds, it's pretty crazy engineering.

Send this to a friend who's free as a robot bird.

In This Open Letter:

In 2008, saying the word "venture" in an SA boardroom was a fast way to end a meeting — this accountant helped make VC what it is today…

Back then, you could tally the whole country's venture funds on one hand, and there was no local rulebook. The US model, which is built around stock-market exits that mostly don't happen here, meant doors got slammed if you even mentioned it.

One fund only got a bank to the table by quietly rebranding itself as a "growth fund."

But, nearly 2 decades on, and SA leads Africa in VC deals, moving around R13.35bn across 1'325 deals per year. Which, of course, didn't happen overnight…

The man backing SA founders before the industry had a name

Brett Commaille is a South African VC veteran who helped build the industry from nothing.

A chartered accountant who now considers himself emancipated from drudge bean-counting work like audits, though he loved factory tours, and will happily tell you he has worked every job going since he was 12. And he learned what business really costs the expensive way, drawing money off his own bond to chase ideas that never sold.

In 2008, RemGro recruited him to set up Invenfin, right at the country's venture starting line. Eighteen years later, he runs Hlayisani Capital (Tsonga for nurture/grow), one of the biggest VC managers on the continent. Just over a billion rand across three funds, the latest a R500m vehicle.

Hlayisani backs some of SA's leading startups and tech companies, including GoMetro, Snapplify, Wyzetalk, Spatialedge and Tractor Outdoor.

Lessons from the trenches

Brett is blunt about the maths: There's no IPO waiting at the end here in SA, so you sell to a trade buyer, which means every business has to crack the thing our biggest companies keep failing at: selling into other markets.

VCs in Africa often struggle to reach the size where they can cover their costs (unlike in the US), and fundraising here is as much fun as smashing yourself in the face with a plank, so you need a special kind of belief in entrepreneurs and what's possible.

In short: His lessons cut against the growth-at-all-costs gospel. The only way you know someone can sell is when they actually sell. But that's also taught him that a lonely genius is a disaster; building the right team gets you over any line, and most successful founders are past 35, so experience beats raw hustle.

Eighteen years in, by his own admission, the Porsche still hasn't arrived.

PS: Wanna hear more tales from the VC trenches from Brett? Join us at our Building & Scaling Venture-Backed Businesses in Stellenbosch. Thursday 30 July, 5 to 9 pm at Workshack, Techno Park. Thalia Pillay of Orca Fraud is on the panel, then Brett's in the fireside chat with Renier Kriel. Our Stellenbosch nights sell out, so get your tickets.

Have your say…

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Teach AI to answer as if it works for you. We got an SA operator who rolled Claude out across a company over two continents to show how to inform AI, so it stops spewing generic rubbish. There are 5 specific steps to getting it right. Get them here.

R1.6M/month from a height-predictor app. This founder found the idea on TikTok, built it out, and now makes $100k (R1.6M) a month from a completely niche app. Watch how they did it.

This Friday: Build a founder-led LinkedIn lead gen system. Renier Lombard (FDC) unpacks how to build a repeatable LinkedIn system that creates opportunities, conversations and inbound interest. 24 July, 12 pm. Collab members only. Join to get access.

🏦 SA Banks Go Stablecoin. FNB, Absa and Nedbank have joined the Visa- and Stripe-backed Open USD stablecoin project, a consortium of 140+ companies building a dollar currency for machine-to-machine payments. Who says SA’s always last; lekker to see SA names at the forefront.

🎬 R10.8bn for AI Film Tools. Netflix paid $587M (R10.8bn) for Ben Affleck's AI filmmaking startup InterPositive, which helps filmmakers enhance post-production without replacing humans. Smart move getting ahead of the trend. We could almost start feeling OK with Affleck as Batman now. Almost.

🍺 The Booze Tax Battle. SA's alcohol industry is fighting proposed higher taxes, saying sin taxes should be inflation-linked like everything else. We stopped drinking years ago, but the way peeps clap in parliament every year when sin taxes are announced is a little questionable. And from a purely business perspective, lower taxes would be good for local producers.

🚂 End of the Copper Era. SA's rail network is moving away from copper cables, replacing them with “cheap” alternatives that can't be stolen and resold. Big news in a country sometimes brought to its knees by cable theft. Great for rail; would be great if we could get this (or similar) in other places too.

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Yesterday, we showed you Many Worlds’ VR training platform, asking how your last company training went. Most here just go if it includes a free meal…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🍕 Free lunch, zero learnings (33%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 😴 PowerPoint, 400 slides, one will to live (22%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🎭 Role-play so awkward I left my body (22%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏃 Booked. Skipped. No notes (6%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎧 Put me in the VR headset, I'm keen to try (17%)

On 21 July 1873, Wild West outlaw legend Jesse James and the James-Younger gang used the "advanced tech" of crowbars and stolen railroad signals to pull off the first successful train robbery in the American Old West.

They loosened a rail to crash the engine (killing the poor engineer), only to realise they had robbed the wrong train. No gold on board, so they robbed the express car and passengers for about $3'000. The Pinkertons (cowboy-era detectives) used actually advanced (for the time) daguerreotype photography, mass printing and newspapers, to use the public’s eyes to track them down.

Led By Her: Tech for Good, 29 July, Online: Four female leaders using tech to solve problems, create access and drive inclusion. Free. Register here

The Open Letter Live: Building & Scaling VC-Backed Businesses, 30 July, Stellenbosch: Brett Commaille (Hlayisani Capital) in the hot seat, plus a VC panel with Thalia Pillay (Orca Fraud). Get your ticket

Work Rewired: Hiring, Skills & Careers in the AI Economy, 13 Aug, Cape Town: How AI is changing hiring, skills and what future-ready talent actually looks like. R50. Book now

Powered by Radi. Want your business event in front of 36,000 The Open Letter readers? Host it on Radi, and it lands here.

🧩 Tool to Try: SkinAI scans and identifies 62+ skin conditions from a photo.

🌍 That's Interesting: In 2005, Maradona confessed that Argentina spiked Brazil's water with tranquillisers during the 1990 World Cup. That was the tourney after they won (1986), but still, man.

🎨 Next Level: Watch Chinese police use a valet robot to move a car instead of towing it.

🕹️ Wow Site: Internet History Roulette, spin the wheel and land on a random archived website from the '90s and 2000s.