Neatly pressed {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? A startup is delivering actual laundry-folding robots to San Francisco customers who can buy it outright (R128k) or use the subscription model (R7’200 pm). 🧺 🤖

In Today’s Open Letter

The company credit card is a plastic nuisance (and security risk) – this SA venture has a way better way to pay for company expenses…

SA companies spend a lot on entertaining clients and team-building. Our business events (MICE) sector is a R121.8 billion per year industry, corporate travel is R47bn, catering services around R13.5bn and team-building rakes up around R12.4bn per year.

But, for employees, paying for business expenses is a schlep.

The company credit card isn’t always available, and the restaurant might not accept a WhatsApp pic. And asking poor Suzie to pay out of her pocket and claim back later is like the company taking a 0% interest loan from its staff. Not nice. 

And we’re pretty sure the finance team don’t enjoy the forensic nightmare of reconciling 20 different slips from 30 days ago either. 

Not to mention the fraud risk: Card fraud losses in SA reached R1.466 bn in 2024. So why not give employees a better way to spend that quick R500 to benefit the company?

The local venture greasing the corporate payment wheels

Paystashio is a smart spend management platform that allows SA businesses to issue instant, controlled virtual cards to their teams.

This changes the game in two key ways: Firstly, the virtual card takes minutes to set up and is live in seconds (automated Know Your Business and Know Your Customer checks against CIPC and Home Affairs databases are already built in).

Secondly, it’s decoupled from the company’s main bank account, and you have granular control over spend and limits per card: Allow only a specific person to spend a specific amount at a specific store, hard-block high-risk categories (like gambling or cash withdrawals), etc. All easily managed in an app interface.

Business expenses, automated

You can even have your cards automatically top up to specific limits and, as soon as payment happens, the employee gets a notification to snap a photo of the receipt, which Paystashio sends straight to your finance team (not 30 days later).

We recently caught up with Herman van Zyl, Product Manager at Paystashio, the next startup coming out of NextOrbit (you might recall our Docaroo feature from a while back). And Herman says they’re pressure-testing the tech against real-world VAT and accounting demands with a small group of SA companies right now.

Want in on the pilot? Join them here.

Removing the friction in how employees manage client relationships from a culture of permission to one of accountability has us watching this space.

Who still waits on hold for insurance quotes?

UK-based specialist insurer, Insurance Revolution, has flipped that idea by bringing customer service to WhatsApp.

Here’s what’s really clever:

✅ Customers engage fully in WhatsApp only
✅ Message volumes jumped 50× (emails dropped 22%)
✅ Support teams spend less time on calls & work strategically

Operators take note: Instead of forcing clients through long forms and inbox chaos, the broker turned WhatsApp into its primary service channel: letting drivers and business owners handle insurance on their own time.

What would you build on WhatsApp today?

Most AI projects don’t fail because of the tech. They fail because nobody owns the strategy. Tools get bolted on, pilots stall and ROI never quite shows up.

That’s why the Fractional Chief AI Officer (fCAIO) is becoming essential: giving companies senior AI leadership without hiring a full-time executive. Octoco AI’s fCAIO service embeds experienced operators directly with your team to turn AI from hype into something that actually moves the needle.

✅ Sense-check AI ideas against real business goals, before budgets get burned
✅ Build governance, security, and strategy that scale with growth
✅ Separate real value from AI theatre and focus on measurable impact

Backed by engineers and data scientists, Octoco AI’s fractional CAIOs help you move from experimentation to execution with clarity.

🎮 Gaming Goes Legit. Gone are gaming’s basement PC and LAN party days. Competitive e-sports has become a serious school sport, with teams in games like Fortnite. Discover how the league is organised, which schools participate and what to expect from this year’s SA schools’ Fortnite and e-sports calendars.

🤑 Hey Big Spender. South Africa just saw another bumper spending season with international card payments rising 23% year-on-year. The average tourist transaction value was 627 rondt, but which tourists spend the most in SA? Here’s what local founders should optimise for.

✈️ Smooth Sailing for Vitality Travellers. Discovery just opened up SA’s first dedicated visa application centre at its Sandton head office to simplify travel to the UK (the most popular international destination for Discovery Vitality travellers). Nice one.

⚰️ RIP SuperSport? DStv’s new owner, Canal+, might’ve just driven the first nail into SuperSport’s coffin after stripping away its decision-making powers on what sports to show. The Winter Olympic Games are reportedly gone. Will the Bok games come to Netflix soon?

🌍 Taking SA Companies Global. Seeing how hard it is for SA founders to take companies global, Dommisse Attorneys worked with the SA SME Fund, SAVCA and Endeavor to create an open-source framework to establish your IP offshore called IP Strategy Flow.*

* From our partners. Find all the best service providers for your business in our Founder Stack.

Yesterday, we showed you how Petl Pay’s helping companies manage project-based payments, asking how you currently manage project payouts. Most use slow old banks…

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🎪 A manual and messy spreadsheet circus (22%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📑 Fragmented tools and juggling 3+ apps (11%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👻 Stressfully waiting for clients to pay first (11%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🌍 High-fee and slow international bank transfers (34%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ ✨ Total and automated financial harmony (22%)

Early-stage SA tech founders: Get R40k+ business-building tools, including data, cloud architecture support, legal and hiring vetting, 1-on-1 strategy and coaching sessions, plus free event tickets, Microsoft Marketplace access and more when you join The Founder Collab.

Win $1m? Startup World Cup Johannesburg finale takes place 26 June — pitch your startup for a shot at the global finals. Applications are now open.

Cape Town youth (18–35): YouthStartCT Entrepreneurial Challenge supports ideas and small businesses creating jobs. Apply 24 Jan–24 Feb.

3+ years revenue? Africa’s Business Heroes Prize offers up to $300k from a $1.5m grant pool plus global exposure. Apply from 3 Mar.

Youth founders (18–35): FNB Youth Start-up Accelerator (with Fetola) supports early-stage township and rural entrepreneurs. Apply by 4 Mar.

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

🚀 Tool to Try: PayFetch automates invoice follow-ups with AI, so you don’t have to.

💰 That’s Interesting: A worker at a tech reclamation plant found $100’000 Canadian (R1.1 million) in the case of an old TV that came in for recycling. Instead of keeping it, they tracked down the original owner and gave it back to him, 30 years later.

⛸️ Next Level: These Olympic skaters crashed, got injured, but didn’t give up and won a silver medal in the end.

📊 Hack: Visual guide comparing the world’s top economies in 1980 vs 2025.

🌐 Wow Site: Closed OpenAI tracks how OpenAI’s mission statement evolved through the years, asking if they’re really all that “open” at all.