Chill out {{ FIRSTNAME }}? A man who cryogenically froze his terminally ill wife 8 years ago in hopes they could find a cure is under media fire now that journalists have discovered he’s started dating again. Sounds like a case for Batman, we think. 🦇

In Today’s Open Letter

Africa needs food security and first-world vertical farming tech’s just not cutting it on the ground – so this SA founder is changing the farm-to-table game…

Africa is suffering what UN advisors call a “food paradox”. We have the second-most land to grow food on in the world, and yet 1 in 5 people go hungry every day. And it’s getting worse, with 58% of the continent experiencing the impact of some form of food insecurity.

Here’s how bad things really are:

And don’t think because you had brekkie that South Africa’s faring much better: We export most of our massive agricultural yield, leaving a shocking 63.5% of SA households food insecure, mainly due to affordability.

Teaching peeps to grow it themselves

Those are exactly the kind of facts that drove SA founder Louis-Gillis Janse van Rensburg to research new and unique methods of growing food. And he was heavily into aquaponics (rearing fish and veg together) when one day in 2016, while working at Sage in Century City (Cape Town), he got the opportunity to set up a system for the Intaka Islands sanctuary.

Quitting his job, Louis built the first system, developed training courses and began building home kits, starting up Fresh Life Produce to offer agri-skills development programmes. But, getting a few government contracts by 2017, Louis realised aquaponics was restrictive and expensive, so by 2018, he pivoted to hydroponics.

Several annual programmes, many awards, and a pivot from governmental projects to corporate gigs later, Louis found most imported agri-technologies restrictive for SA (those European mega-automated vertical farms are never gonna fly here)...

So necessity drove him to totally reimagine what truly efficient farming in Africa could look like.

And the African Grower system was born 

Leaning on his father (a retired CSIR scientist)’s experience, Louis developed the African Grower, a low-cost, compact, portable and extremely water-wise vertical garden kit that one person can set up by themself and grow 16–24 plants, literally anywhere.

The kit’s complete with everything you need to grow plants inside a container about the size of a kid's toy box. Put 2 or 3 together and you can grow 42+ plants per square metre, and the system uses less than 10% of the water required when planting in the ground.

The kits are sold individually, and corporates have the option of having Louis set it up and run agri-training programmes for CSI initiatives. You can even book team-building or agri tours at one of his most famous installations in Cape Town.

Which brings us to the biggest rooftop farm… 

Louis currently has the largest rooftop farm in the Western Cape (a contender for the SA title) at the Kenilworth Centre in Cape Town. It’s a series of 3x4m tunnels, packed with African growers and over 510 plants each, producing an enormous amount of food per square metre.

And he now has the chance to expand it to become the biggest rooftop farm in Africa, able to run 3 agri skills development programmes, training entrepreneurs, mentors and community members in parallel from this one site. 

He’s already raised well over a million to fund most of it, but is inviting you and anyone you know who wants to contribute to head over to their back a buddy page and make Africa’s biggest happen.

Smarter food for Africa? You know we’re watching this space (grow)...

Who wants to trade stablecoins in separate apps?

VALR and Mukuru just flipped that completely by launching a USDC wallet that lives inside WhatsApp, letting millions of people buy, hold and sell digital dollars without touching an exchange.

But here’s what’s really clever:

✅ No trading apps — users access USDC straight from WhatsApp
✅ Mukuru customers can hedge against inflation with stable dollar assets
✅ Powered by VALR’s fully licensed crypto infrastructure

In a region where stablecoins already make up 43% of all crypto volume, this turns WhatsApp into a financial safety net — giving everyday consumers a fast, familiar and inflation-proof way to store value.

What would you build on WhatsApp today?

There’s only so much you can do with software; eventually, enterprises need IoT services, embedded systems, PCB design and mass manufacturing…

We don’t think about it too often, but South Africa’s innovation economy operates at dual speed: Software skills are abundant, but enterprises struggle to find great local hard-tech support.

Octoco is quietly working to resolve this bottleneck, functioning as an integrated deep-tech division for SA enterprises that want to grow in the local ecosystem. 

De-risking strategic innovation

By bringing a multi-disciplinary team of specialised engineers to the table, Octoco brings enterprise-grade support to SA:

✅ Built a digital ecosystem of web and mobile apps for InteliGro, driving ops efficiency, digitising field ops and enabling data-driven decision-making.

✅ Created full-stack specialised PCB design and embedded firmware for advanced products like Intelligent Safe Technologies.

✅ Helped the likes of Innovus spin out university-derived tech like PAGA MedTech device without the long, costly processes of having to hire specialised staff.

If you’re always looking to the future, we’d build ties with them.

⚡Powering Up. AI-powered home energy management startup Plentify has just closed an oversubscribed Series A funding round, with total capital raised to date to nearly R256m, in a round led by Secha Capital, Buffet Investments and a South African family office. Well done, team Plentify.

📺 Makes (Hi) Sense. Hisense SA is opening up its very first premium brand store in SA, with products manufactured right here on SA soil at its Atlantis factory in the Atlantis Special Economic Zone, employing more than 1’000 South Africans. Very cool.

👕 All The Way To The Bank. SA retail and mobile phone giant Pepkor is looking to open up its own bank. “Pep Bank”, which could be born through a partnership with Investec, is said to be hoping to leverage Pep’s  6’000 store network to reach millions of lower-income customers. Very interesting.

🤦 Not Again. Parts of the interwebs went dark yesterday afternoon, including the Downdetector site🤭, all thanks to a Cloudflare issue. This is less than a month after the large-scale AWS crashout. It’s all falling apart.

✅ The Stack. Founders need reliable tools, so our Founder’s Stack gives you your own CFO with Finvoke, WhatsApp marketing with 2'000% ROI powered by Chat Inc and more.

When you share, we give you cool free stuff.

Yesterday, we showed you how unipage’s new AI bursary finder, asking about the final boss to getting a bursary in SA. And we have a tie…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎯 Finding a degree that actually vibes with your marks (7%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🗺️ Bursary searches that feel like side quests with no loot (29%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🎤 “Career guidance” that’s basically a vibes-based TED Talk (29%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧩 Admin overload, 47 tabs open, 0 results (14%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 📜 University websites that seem written in Ancient Hieroglyphics (21%)

Your 2 cents…

Calling found, hey, Jacobs. Awesome! 🎙️

South African founders: The 2025 South African Startup Awards are open: Win Startup of the Year, media exposure, legal support and more. Apply by 21 Nov. Enter here.

Want to speak on SA’s biggest software stage? DevConf 2026 is calling for diverse speakers: from first-timers to seasoned pros. If your message belongs in front of SA’s tech community, apply by 30 Nov. Apply here.

Deep tech founder? Hello Tomorrow Challenge offers €100k equity-free for startups in advanced computing & cybersecurity. Apply by 30 Nov. Apply here.

Biotech innovators: SA–Cuba Biotechnology Collaboration Call invites R&D partnerships on therapies for chronic and neurodegenerative diseases. Apply by 5 Dec. Details here.

Eco-entrepreneurs (16–28): Mercedes-Benz Fellowship funds 1'000 young innovators tackling environmental challenges. Apply by 12 Jan. Apply here.

Want to promote your event/programme here? Let us know.

💡 Tool to Try: BigSpy lets you track competitors’ ads across 10 platforms, to see what’s working for them or not.

🎨 That’s Interesting: In 1959, a South African jazz album featured a Coca-Cola advert image on the cover. Decades later, a Coca-Cola archivist found it and came to SA to meet the artist.

✈️ Next Level: You have to see how the enormous C-5M Galaxy retracts its landing gear.

🎯 Hack: Here’s a visual guide to different goal-setting methods.

🪐 Wow Site: NASA’s Mars Relay Network shows the position of every rover and satellite on Mars.

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