The electrical engineer building SA’s next university OS, the devs turning SA commuters into a GPS and the duo building an Africam medical first. These are the 5 SA founder teams to watch this week.
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Booze Cap is locking SA's drunk drivers out before they can start the engine
Half of SA road fatalities involve drivers over the alcohol limit. Over the 2025/26 festive season alone, 8,561 of 170,000 breathalysed drivers were over the limit (5%), and that's before factoring in the truck drivers, taxi operators and bus drivers who slip into a shebeen between depot breathalysing and the rest of the route. Pretoria's Sally Mazhandu built Booze Cap, a breathalyser wired straight into the vehicle so the engine cannot start unless you blow under the limit. One drop over and you ain't going anywhere. Already running a campaign to sponsor 15 scholar transport vehicles, taxis and public transport buses with a fitted device. See how SA is tackling drunk driving with Booze Cap's breathalyser vehicle lock.
Jonathan Williams and Hein du Toit are giving SA retailers back their in-store attribution
Chat Inc founder Jonathan Williams (UCT BCom Informatics and UCT GSB MPhil in Inclusive Innovation) and Chat Inc COO Hein du Toit (Stellenbosch BCom Accounting, ex-Mazars NYC) had spent years running WhatsApp marketing for SA retailers, always struggling to prove a campaign worked because they never knew if you actually bought anything in-store. One evening, Jonathan was at dinner with his wife and noticed the nest of cables behind the POS, asking why nobody had fixed the paper receipt yet. That was the moment neXon was born. The device now turns the anonymous in-store shopper into a known profile in real time, pushing the data straight to Shopify, WooCommerce or Meta. See how Jon and Hein built neXon's retail data pixel.
Le Roux Viljoen turned a Bokke-day call into R14 million paid out to SA's unemployed doctors
Stellenbosch MBChB graduate Dr Le Roux Viljoen, a Cape Town orthopaedic medical officer who'd been working unpaid shifts just to gain surgical experience, was at a Saturday braai with the Bokke on. Beer in hand, a call came in: a granny had broken her hip, did he want to scrub in? For obvious reasons, he couldn't, so he sent an unemployed mate instead. The surgeon was thrilled at the match (the Dr, not the rugby). That was the moment The Surgical Assistant was born. Three years on, R14 million has been paid out across 7,000+ cases with 1,200 unemployed SA doctors registered. See how Le Roux built The Surgical Assistant for doctor matching.
Not South Africa, but worth a look:
Germain Bahri and Rinse Jacobs are bringing European-grade banking to SA SMEs, via Morocco
European fintech operators Germain Bahri and Rinse Jacobs, both former Solarisbank executives with deep European fintech experience, chose SA as the primary market for their next venture. While preparing to launch in SA, they spotted an opportunity in Morocco, validated the product with 500+ SMEs (Bolt included), raised $1.5m (R25m) from Plug and Play Ventures, Digital Africa and Launch Africa, and partnered with Visa to launch Morocco's first 100% online business account. Now back in SA with their first 50 businesses onboarded, Zazu is the neobank built to pull every financial tool into one login. See how Germain and Rinse built Zazu, the neobank for SMEs.
Daniel Maloba built SA's university OS after his own degree taught him that the system was the problem
Stellenbosch Electrical and Electronic Engineering graduate Daniel Maloba, originally from the DRC, moved to SA at 19 to study and almost didn't make it through. He assumed his struggles were personal until he joined Stellenbosch's LaunchLab, and other students kept asking how he had managed it. Turns out the problem wasn't his language or background, but the system itself: support dries up the moment students leave the lecture hall, and lecturers don't have time to track who's slipping. So, Daniel, a 2024 Stellenbosch Network Entrepreneur of the Month and the founder of Maloba Consulting (50+ startups supported), built Yeba AI. It's already live with 248 users and 57 courses, with pilots at UWC and the Mastercard Foundation Scholars programme. See how Daniel built Yeba AI's university OS.
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Also, see our watchlist of all the bold & engaging new SA founders from May.
About The #SAFounders to Watch This Week Initiative
Every week, we interview South African founders and operators building or scaling unique new businesses of every size. This is a rolling list of the founders behind those companies, and we keep it updated, practically daily.
Also, see our watchlist of new & unique SA companies from May, the boldest and most engaging new SA founders from May, learn how to write an investor update newsletter that gets you funded and meet the SA team behind Sandstone’s Series A raise.
If you know of an SA founder (be it of a startup, scale-up or SME) that should be featured here, tell our team about it.
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