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Ultimate videos? Startup Moonvalley just released what they call Hollywood-grade gen AI video with insane-looking, detailed fine-tuning and control. And apparently it’s only trained on licensed footage, so it's commercially safe. Hmm.. fancy. 🎥

Happy Friday! Be sure to scroll to the end for some weekend braai goodness!

All outta antivenom? Here’s a unique SA opportunity for you…

In South Africa, around 4’000 people get bitten by snakes every year. Just under 1’000 require hospitalisations, about 100 need antivenom and, sadly, 15 don’t make it.

That's largely preventable, but (bet you didn’t know) SA is currently facing a serious antivenom shortage. Why? The South African National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) stopped manufacturing snake antivenom earlier this year. Loadshedding had highlighted major problems with their equipment, so they closed shop to do upgrades. 

It’s not just the snake stuff, either – there’s precious little scorpion and spider antivenom right now in SA, too. And it costs a pretty penny: R2’310 per 10ml vial of polyvalent antivenom (multiple snake species’ bites) and R7’590 per 10ml of monovalents, like boomslang antivenom.

Why so expensive?

Firstly, because each venom is chemically unique (there’s a big diff between how black mambas produce their venom VS puff adders, etc.), there’s no one-size-fits-all cure. But mainly because the production process is beyond insane:

The animal’s antibodies are what give you the antivenom. And some countries use sheep or llamas, but in SA, we use horses – just imagine the cost of keeping all those snakes and unhappy horses over that time.

Once immune, blood is drawn from the horse, the serum removed, purified, and the blood put back into the horse. It’s slow, inefficient, and uses tech that harks back to the 1890s.

The self-immunising cobra guy

Tim Friede is a truck mechanic with a snake obsession – so much so that he spent nearly two decades self-immunising with increasing doses of venom from some of the world’s deadliest snakes, including black mambas, king cobras and tiger snakes, turning his body into a walking antivenom factory.

And it might just be working: Biotech researchers have isolated antibodies from his blood that neutralise venom from over a dozen snake species and could be leading us to a universal antivenom, all made from one man’s blood.

That won’t be overnight, though. And, for now, SA needs antivenom. With 100 cases per year, each case requiring between 10 and 40 vials (10ml) to treat fully (at R7k per vial), you’re looking at a R28 million opportunity here in SA, right now.

It’s not like we have a shortage of snake encounters either. The Stellenbosch snake removals guy uploads new snake vids almost daily – including, not too long ago, a puff adder from one of our team members’ shed. We’re watching this space…

Most companies have mountains of unused (and unmonetised) data scattered in outdated, disconnected systems.

One JSE-listed IT consortium had multiple companies with complex databases to navigate and legacy platforms that made getting insights across its diverse operations a nightmare.

Smarter data handling

Enter Sidekick Lab’s natural language query assistant. Using intelligent discovery and cataloguing, Sidekick Lab came in and consolidated all their data —

✅ spreadsheets
✅ databases
✅ even unstructured PDFs

— into one intuitive hub, with intelligent enterprise-grade AI chat to help them make sense of it all, fast.

Easy access, faster decisions

Now, all company management has to do is ask:

❓“What are the Q3 sales trends?”
❓or “Show me customer patterns”

And they get clear, concise answers in minutes, all in plain English.

Complex budget-versus-actual comparisons that required specialist Power BI skills before are now just a simple prompt (by virtually any staffer) away. And the system integrates seamlessly with existing enterprise authentication and scales across multiple operating companies. 

Is there an easier way for mid-market businesses to unlock the potential of their data? 

Not likely.

📚 Signing In. UCT has lit up the inclusivity path by launching a pilot project that makes its National Benchmark Test (which assesses the academic readiness of students for higher education in South Africa) website accessible in South African Sign Language. Thanks to the efforts of Michelle de Bruyn, the university tackles education barriers head-on, creating a first-ever SASL-accessible site at a South African tertiary institution. Mega cool to see.

📈 AI Funding Boom. Cerebrium, the Cape Town-born AI powerhouse, just scored a whopping $8.5 million to turbocharge its serverless AI platform. Now based in New York, founders Michael Louis and Jonathan Irwin plan to beef up their features and tackle enterprise demand head-on. With backing from Google's Gradient and Y Combinator, elastic scaling of AI might just be the hottest ticket in town. Hmm... watch this space.

📱 OpenAI’s Browser Battle Cry. OpenAI is gearing up to shake Google's stronghold by launching an AI-powered web browser set to rival Chrome. If adopted by ChatGPT's massive 500 million weekly users, this could seriously disrupt Google's ad revenue engine. Intriguingly, the browser will integrate AI "agents" ready to book your dinner reservations and more! Think about it, is there better training data for AI agents than browser behaviour? Not likely…

🤖 The best AI model out there? After going off the charts earlier in the week, xAI released its latest AI model, Grok 4. Elon claims it’s the only model that can actually perform complex math and scientific computations without hallucinating, while admitting their model still lags behind others in image generation. Independent tests seem to agree, for today, Grok 4 seems to be the best model out there

🎸 Wanna own Fyre Fest? Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland is auctioning off the entire Fyre Festival brand on eBay. You can own Fyre Fest for a cool 3.6 million Rondts. Despite a seven-figure deal collapse, McFarland promises bidders a "global attention engine" for future exploits. The delulu is unmatched with this one.

✅ The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with the best in IP offshoring and global market access with Finance Isle of Man, all your VC and startup legal sorted by Dommisse Attorneys, and loads more vital startup tools & services.

Rusticana, originally a dairy farm, is a fourth-generation family-run farm in the Highveld of Mpumalanga. And, recently, the family pivoted to breeding certified Wagyu cattle and Dormer sheep.

Which opened the doors for premium wagyu beef and highveld lamb straight from the farm to your table…

Their online store offers curated Wagyu boxes with a variety of cuts (and even some Wagyu Boerie) to give you a taste of all things Wagyu, or individual premium cuts — ribeye, fillet, picanha, and more. You’ll also find Highveld lamb, all raised on nutrient-rich pasture and backed by certified Wagyu standards.

Christian Malan, who is also part of our The Founder Collab community, has an exclusive discount for The Open Letter readers for your first order — click here and use the code: THEOPENLETTER at checkout to get 20% off your first order.

🌍 Senior Product Engineer CPT @ Jem

🏙️ Senior Product Engineer JHB @ Jem

👨🏼‍💻 Full-Stack Developer @ The Awareness Company

🤝 Customer Success Specialist @ The Awareness Company

📡 IoT Field Technician @ The Awareness Company

💰 Head of Sales @ The Awareness Company

👨🏼‍🎨 Marketing Intern @ The Awareness Company

Hiring? Post your jobs in The Open Letter for FREE.

Yesterday, we introduced you to study solution Pass and Prosper, asking who you best learn from, and most get value from pros on the net…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧑‍🏫 My lecturers, who else? (13%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🧑‍🎓 Tutors who’ve already graduated (25%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤓 Subject matter experts on the interwebs (38%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤖 AI, of course (is there any other way?) (13%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤝 Fellow students who are mastering the topic (13%)

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