Moonwalking {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? Michael Jackson's Thriller returned to the Billboard charts (a decade after his death) to clock over 500 weeks on the charts, thanks to his upcoming biopic. And it's not the only one; five of his albums are currently back and trending. That's legacy. 👑
Send this to a friend to challenge them to a dance-off. 🕺
In This Open Letter
Winner: Your 2026 Startup of the Year revealed.
Local: SA Spotify earnings & diesel drops R4/l.
Global: Notion goes agentic & new subsea cable.
Tech Jobs: 6 new dev & data roles up for grabs.
Beyond: What breaks first when you're scaling.
Work Smarter: Reverse-engineer any image.
More South of Series A just dropped 🦄
Our weekly comic strip about life in a Cape Town startup is back with a brand-new edition at the bottom of this mail 👇
TRENDING NOW
Your 2026 Startup of the Year
ICYMI: Startup of the Year 2026 hosted by Innovation City x The Open Letter wrapped up yesterday, and oh what a night…
The calibre of founders and the startups they’re building was next level, but the judges were super demanding:
The competition started with a pre-screening that counted 15% toward totals
Followed by a deep dive into their progress over the last 18 months for 50%
And then, at last night’s event, the final pitch counted 35%
Your judges weren’t just anybody, either. We had Ayanda Vabaza-Mvandaba CA(SA), Non-Executive Director at Outsourced CFO; Gladwyn Leeuw, CEO of E Squared Investments; Tamu Dutuma, Executive Head of Tech Strategy at Absa Group; Grant Carter, CIO of Payfast by Network; and, of course, Renier Kriel, CEO of The Open Letter.
But this year’s Top 10 (we listed the other day) were honestly so good, we wouldn't have been surprised to see any of the 10 startups walk away with the R500k grand prize and the title of Startup of the Year 2026.
Of course, there could be only one…
Startup of the Year 2026: still good
still good are the food-waste fighters turning near-expiry stock into mystery Value Bags, sold through their retail partners at up to 65% off, and via their newly launched online marketplace, The Goods.
Founder Steffen Burrows (3rd from the left) accepts the award for Startup of the Year 2026.
"Building a business is really hard; most days are a struggle, and it takes immense staying power to get through the roadblocks. This award provides the validation we need to keep pushing our idea forward. In entrepreneurship, you lose most of the time, so success is really about ensuring your wins are significant enough to outweigh your cumulative losses.
I am deeply honoured and grateful for this award."
In the past year, still good has grow 1’500% from 5’000 to 80’000+ registered users, sold over 145k mystery bags, and locked in a full SLA with Pick n Pay covering the entire Western Cape region.
Steffen says 70% of purchases come from repeat customers, while over 85% of the mystery Value Bags they list sell out.
And the model works because it sits in the middle of two pressing problems: Retailers haemorrhage margin on surplus and near-expiry stock, while shoppers are crushed by ongoing food inflation.
Well done, Steffen and the still good team. A win that feels right for where South Africa is in 2026.
And of course, that’s not all. Last night, we also gave away a R5’000 Johnson Workwear voucher for The People’s Choice Award, as voted by readers of The Open Letter, as well as the winner of the Best Pitch Award, as voted for by the audience at Innovation City.
The People’s Choice Award Winner 2026
Founder Piet van Niekerk’s brother and co-operator, Daniel, collects the award for Udok.
With 34.42% of the 308 votes cast by The Open Letter readers, Udok are the People’s Choice Award winner for Startup of the Year 2026. Congrats, Piet, Daniel and the Udok team.
The Best Pitch Winner 2026
Steffen came on stage a 2nd time on the night…
Best pitch of the night was by Steffen of still good, a clear audience fave, locking in 33.5% of the vote. Nice one!
A huge thanks to the Innovation City team for having us part of the festivities. We had such a good time collaborating with you, and congrats on yet another top-class event.
Let’s do it again.
CHECK THIS OUT
Why SA founders going global are looking at the Isle of Man
When SA companies get international clients, cross-border IP and capital that needs a proper home, the only question is: where?
The Isle of Man might not be the first name on your radar, but it’s a self-governing British Crown dependency with its own legal system, a zero per cent corporate tax rate on most activities and one of the strongest regulatory environments in the offshore world.
It's been rated in the top tier for international tax cooperation by the OECD and holds over 50 double taxation agreements. More importantly, Finance Isle of Man (FIOM) exists specifically to connect international entrepreneurs with the right advisors, service providers and structures on the island.
They're not selling a product; they're about opening doors: Whether you need a holding company for your IP, a base for international trade or a structure that lets you raise capital from global investors, FIOM helps you find the right experts to set it up properly.
And that's a conversation worth having.
IN SHORT
Easing you into the weekend…
🎵 SA Music Goes Global. South African artists earned R504 million on Spotify in 2025 (a 28% year-on-year increase), but nearly 74% of that comes from listeners outside the country. Lekker that we can export, but where do locals support local music then?
🤖 Notion Goes Agentic. Productivity darling Notion has turned its workspace into a hub for AI agents, launching a developer platform for custom agents, external agent connections and automated multi-step workflows. Smart move to stay relevant, especially if they can help control costs.
⛽ Diesel Drivers Rejoice. The latest fuel price forecast is swinging in diesel drivers' favour with a potential R4/l decrease this June. Good news, not just for motorists but also for energy generation. Sadly, petrol looks set for an increase of 20–25 cents.
🌊 New Undersea Cable. A new Europe-to-Africa submarine cable project called Via Africa has been launched. And, if we can't get Starlink, better connectivity is second prize — holding our breaths for the estimated 3–5 years these projects normally take.
💻 Dev-Friendly Payments. Paystack's API docs are the kind developers actually enjoy reading: one-time payments, recurring billing, instant transfers, identity verification and a checkout that doesn't redirect customers off your site. Weekend project or production FinTech, same stack.*
* From our partners. Find all the best service providers for your business in our Founder Stack.
WHAT YOU SAID
Patchy at best…
Yesterday, we featured Kwanda AI enablement platform, asking where your business is actually at with AI. Turns out nobody's fully wired just yet…
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤖 We're AI-first, properly wired, agents doing real work (0%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🔧 We've automated bits and pieces, but it's patchy (62%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💭 We're still in the "talking about AI" phase (19%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😅 We've tried, hit the 40% wall, and stalled (0%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🙈 Honestly, we haven't even started (19%)
READY FOR A MOVE?
Jobs in Tech
OfferZen proudly sponsors Jobs in Tech
The name in SA tech employment for over a decade, OfferZen needs no introduction, and their ability to get you placed is only as legendary as the time, energy and money they save employers in finding top skills.
BEYOND THE NEWSLETTER
What breaks first when you're scaling?
We asked a fast-growing SA niche sports e-commerce founder — and his answer is a reminder that growing a company is not smooth sailing (but obvs still the most fun you can have)…
Don’t miss all the extra operator interviews and insights content we do on our social channels — come enjoy the vibez.
AROUND THE WEB
Have some fun…
⌚ Tool to Try: NORA is a child safety watch using on-device AI to detect distress.
💍 That's Interesting: While at Oxford, JRR Tolkien helped solve the mystery of a 4th-century stolen ring, which legend says was a cursed object. Many believe that’s what inspired the idea for The Lord of the Rings’ One Ring.
🦍 Next Level: Watch this gorilla use sign language to tell visitors they're not allowed to feed him.
🛸 Wow Site: Here are all the UFO files the US government recently released, in one place.
🧠 Work Smarter: The AI Advantage shows a trick to reverse-engineer any image using ChatGPT's new image model; one prompt, near-perfect recreation. What?
SOUTH OF SERIES A
A slice of SA startup life…
This Cape Town startup is not quite a unicorn – yet. And now they've only got 11 weeks' runway to try and get there. Will they make it? Find out: There's a new comic strip every Friday, only in The Open Letter.
Got a favourite? Meet all the South of Series A characters here.
☝ See how to send this to a friend you'd go global with. 🦄
