Easy pickings, {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? Some thieves recently stole crown jewels worth R1.7bn from the Louvre in Paris. How? Turns out the password to the most secure museum in the world’s camera system was just “Louvre”. 🤦‍♀️

In Today’s Open Letter

Why pay exorbitant accounting fees when the data’s already right there on your bank statements? This local startup’s unlocking Xero-style bank integration at 1/3 the price…

Few companies start big. Most of SA’s 3 million MSMEs are scaling hobbies or founders just testing an idea (too early to formalise). So most begin as a sole proprietor, trading in their own name (often using their own bank accounts). 

The problem is that when the business starts working, founders get busy and then things move fast. And that’s when accounting and bookkeeping often get left behind.

But it’s important to formalise

Thing is, you need good bookkeeping to apply for funding, access loans and financial tools, register for VAT once you hit R1mil in annual revenue, etc. Not to mention knowing how your business is doing is obviously super important as a founder.

In fact, research shows that nearly half of a small business’s chances of survival come down to how well it manages its finances. Which was an important problem to solve…

The opportunity at the early stage

Anyone who’s ever used an accountant will tell you the hardest part of the job is just reconciling all the lines on bank statements – sorting what withdrawals/deposits are for the business and which are personal.

It’s not new information; your bank already has it, which is what many cloud accounting software packages offer – direct bank integration, to make recons easier for accountants.

The only problem? Entry-level packages are quite expensive, and in most cases, the software is built for accountants, not entrepreneurs. Leaving room for a founder-focused, more affordable South African player…

The local startup making your bank your accountant

stub is a cloud-based accounting package that’s built with founders as the primary user in mind: integrating with your bank accounts (just like Xero), but with a much simpler setup and interface, free tier and the full package at just 33% of the price (R150 gets you all set!).

It helps you auto-categorise transactions, making bookkeeping a breeze even for founders who want to stay hands-on with their business finances (instead of leaving it all to an accountant). Not to mention it integrates with local tools entrepreneurs already use. 

A recent Capitec tie-up hooks up transactions directly from a business owner using their personal account (with business accounts on the way), meeting small businesses where they actually bank. 

We chatted to stub Co-founder Tayla Dandridge, who told us stub's API makes it easier to integrate with more tools and that the stub team also likes building what their users need, so if you’ve got a tool you like working with and would like stub to integrate with it, they’re open to chatting.  

With more and more local tools being built for how South Africans actually run our businesses, the global players might just have some stiff competition on their hands.

We’re watching this space…

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Why build a go-to-market strategy when someone already has your buyers?

Cloud On Demand’s ISV program plugs your SaaS product into their partner marketplace, meaning you get exposed to resellers, enterprise buyers, and Microsoft-aligned channels.

You don’t need a sales team or a fancy funnel. You need clients.

Join now and get marketplace-ready in no time.

🇿🇦 Flying the Flag. Meta's Llama Impact Accelerator has announced its national winners, including 3 startups from SA: eFama in 1st, CatalyzU in 2nd and Four Minute Medicine rounding out our Top 3. They now head to Dubai to pitch at the AI Summit 2025. Very nice.

👀 Cell C Eyes The JSE. Cell C is planning to raise R7.7 billion through a JSE listing after a hefty facelift that includes debt swaps and asset transfers. Sjoe, hey...

💵 Burry's Big AI Bet. Michael Burry (his story was portrayed in “The Big Short”) is at it again, betting $1.1 billion against the AI hype. Last time he bet against a bubble, it was the housing market in 2007. Very interesting...

🏃‍♀️ Vitality’s AI Leap. Discovery and Google have partnered to launch Vitality AI, a platform aiming to personalise health using data insights, boosting health and slashing premiums by up to 33%. Whoa.

✅ The Stack. Founders need reliable tools, so our Founder’s Stack gives you cloud services by Cloud on Demand, Africa-ready payroll & HR via Deel Local Payroll powered by PaySpace and loads more.

From 15 October 2025 to 15 November 2025, each friend you get to sign up to The Open Letter gets you one entry into a draw to win a brand new iPad Air!

Yesterday, we showed you how PURA Beverages scaled from SA to the US, asking if you’ve ever tasted a PURA? Most not, but now they gonna…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🥤 Yup – got a few in the fridge right now (11%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👀 Once at a braai, can’t remember the flavour, but it slapped (14%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🇿🇦 Not yet, but local brands always get my vote (35%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤷 Never heard of it, but now I’m thirsty (38%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍋 If it’s healthier soda, can I have two? (3%)

Your 2 cents…

Lekker, Lauren. Sure they’ll love to hear that. 🧃

Ha ha, the way they’re moving, Jesko, won’t be surprised if they’re stocked there real soon. 🍹

SA’s biggest data centres show the coming crunch in AI-era power demand.

South Africa has 56 data centres with a combined 350MW load, and 10 of them now account for nearly 80% of it:

💡 Teraco dominates with the top three spots, including its Isando campus at 70MW and 32'000m², making it the largest in the country.

💡 These top 10 centres alone represent 278MW of load capacity, showing how quickly demand has concentrated at the top.

💡 Only five centres are currently AI-capable, meaning South Africa holds just 1% of global AI data centre capacity, compared to the US, which hosts over 40%.

As demand surges (especially from power-hungry AI workloads), operators are already moving upstream. Teraco, for instance, is building a 120MW solar facility in the Free State to secure future energy.

🎬 Tool to Try: Sora Watermark Remover erases text overlays and logos from videos.

🦣 That’s Interesting: A small group of woolly mammoths were still alive long after the pyramids were built.

🥅 Next Level: Watch this college goalkeeper block 3 rapid-fire shots in a row.

🔧 Hack: You can locate an annoying rattle in your car without driving by using a tone generator app.

🖨️ Wow Site: Every message you type on Terminal Guestbook gets printed on paper and delivered to a lonely developer, somewhere in the world.

Vote in the poll, leave a quick comment, or hit reply — we read every single one.