Love bubbles {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? Avast! A family in the Bahamas was bummed that their parakeet couldn’t go scuba diving, so they built it a little parrot submarine. 🦜🐬

In This Open Letter

More than 5 million South Africans attended a live soccer match in 2023, and as many as 75% of SA adults love the sports that generate roughly R50 billion annually – this SA venture went to the US and back to bring fans a more rewarding experience…

How do SA teams actually reward fans’ loyalty? The Stormers offer season ticket holders a digital loyalty card on Ticketmaster. The Sharks run early-bird renewal discounts. Most programmes reward spending — you earn points by buying things.

But that’s missing a trick: Fans are precious. Why not reward peeps just for showing up, for being a fan?

The SA-built everything-sports app brings it home

Wunderfan is the latest iteration of Geran de Klerk’s Wunderpar, which we featured a while ago, when they were still doing only golf. And it’s essentially a sports rewards app that pays fans back for watching, attending and engaging with sports — not just spending money.

Pitch up at a stadium (it's geofenced) and the longer you stay, the more Wunder points you earn. Watching a live game on TV? Open the app, snap a photo of the screen, and Wunderfan's AI reads the score graphic (teams, scores, time), confirms you're watching live, and the points start rolling. 

Then you, Mr and Mrs superfan, get to redeem those points for lekker vouchers, discounts and gear from partner brands.

Having proved the model in golf, Geran realised its legs ran beyond the fairway, and he assembled an international team of co-founders to take the Wunderpar concept to the US to build it out fully.

From the US to SA

Since then, Wunderfan has gone live in the US (ESPN Events named it the official fan rewards app for the Birmingham Bowl), closed a $3.1 million seed round (roughly R57m), and brought on SA cricket legend Dale Steyn (not only as an ambassador, but as an investor) to lead expansion into cricket and the massive T20 ecosystem.

Here's the commercial logic: Brands can offer double Wunder points for watching games on specific networks, and Geran says that's driven a 40–60% shift in viewership between networks for the same match. That's the kind of data that makes broadcasters pay attention.

And in a full circle moment, after raising R57 million in the US, Wunderfan is officially back home and switching on its South Africa operations this week.

We’re watching this space…

PS: Geran is a member of The Founder Collab, our community of 130+ SA founders building great businesses from South Africa. Come join if you wanna build with cool people like Geran.

Most SA businesses don’t fail because of a bad product; they fail because nobody’s watching the numbers.

A 2024 Xero Small Business Insights report found that nearly 60% of small businesses in South Africa operate without regular management accounts. That means no monthly visibility on cash flow, margins or burn rate. Just vibes and bank balances.

The result? Founders find out they’re in trouble three months too late. Tax season becomes a fire drill. And when it’s time to raise, there’s nothing investor-ready to show.

The gap isn’t a missing spreadsheet.

It’s a missing financial layer: someone who can translate the numbers into decisions before things go sideways.

Stop being reactive and start getting ahead.

💸 SA Startups Raised R320m+ in March. South African startups raised over R320 million in funding last month. See who raised what and from whom in our final roundup of funding rounds in March 2026.

🤖 SA’s AI Policy Kick Start. SA has just published its draft national AI policy for public comment before 10 June. It proposes a National AI Commission, Ethics Board, Regulatory Authority and Insurance Superfund (like the RAF). Interesting.

🧑‍💻 Remote Restaurant Jobs. A New York City chain of fried chicken and ramen restaurants has switched to remote cashiers dialling in to take customers’ orders from, wait for it, the Philippines. And they’re doing it at a song: Less than a fourth of the US hourly rate. Crazy.

🎮 Gaming as a Service. The City of Cape Town has plans to turn into a major e-sports hub and has opened a request for information to service providers that can design and deliver LAN gaming as a service across its public venues. Nice one.

📊 Brand Clarity Secured. Stellenbosch's Sonic Fund and Sonic Trader needed to serve very different audiences without brand dilution. So DoubleShift built two distinct brand systems, giving both the clarity to scale globally with sharper investor and customer traction.*

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

Crypto held its ground while everything else wobbled. Binance Research's April report shows BTC returned +1% and ETH gained +6% during the US-Iran conflict, while the S&P 500 fell 8% and gold dropped 13%. Read the full report.

You can now trade gold and silver 24/7 on Binance. TradFi Perpetual Contracts let you trade precious metals around the clock, settled in USDT; no broker, no market hours. Gold and silver daily volume has already hit $3.7bn+, now SA has access. Check it out here.

CZ just dropped a book & it's already No.1. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao's memoir Freedom of Money was written partly during his US federal prison sentence. It covers the full Binance story and all royalties go to charity. Get it for braai debates.

Disclaimer: Digital asset prices can be volatile. The value of your investment may go down or up and you may not get back the amount invested. You are solely responsible for your investment decisions and Binance is not liable for any losses you may incur. Not financial advice. For more information, see our Terms of Use and Risk Warning.

Last week, we showed you Sawubona’s language learning app, asking how many SA languages you speak. Turns out most here are bilingual bosses…

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👍 Just the one — 21%

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ✌️ My home language and English — 49%

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤩 I'm a polyglot — 20%

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇿🇦 I am the rainbow nation – all 11 languages — 6%

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📱 I'm about to add another one — 4%

Your 2 cents…

That's beautiful, Kelebogile — respect really is the ultimate icebreaker. 🙌

Hardware Hackathon – 15 Apr, CPT: Octoco’s one-day build sprint with teams tackling “City of the Future” through rapid prototyping and testing. Apply now.

South African Startup Week – 15–17 Apr, CPT: A three-day, founder-first event covering inspiration, hands-on building and networking. Get tickets.

How AI Is Shaping Fintech Across Africa – 16 Apr, JHB: Shola Akinlade on scaling fintech and AI across African markets. Get your tickets.

What Changes Legally When You Start Growing – 17 Apr, Online: Jacques Stemmet on the legal shifts when startups scale. Get your spot.

Bots & Bubbles: How AI Rewires Financial Services – 23 Apr, CPT: AI in fraud, payments and risk — with leaders from Payfast, TransUnion and Orca Fraud. Get tickets (R50).

Remember to get your entries in for the 2025 Startup of the Year.

🧩 Tool to Try: Revenue Map helps you do revenue projections and break-even analysis in minutes.

🌍 That's Interesting: All long-duration spaceflight astronauts are banned from driving for 21 days after returning to Earth because of potential muscle atrophy. Elon's Mars crew better sort out Uber.

🐕 Next Level: Watch this guy swim through ice to save a frozen doggie (he survived).

🌍 Wow Site: How Poor Am I shows you how rich/poor you are compared to the rest of your country.

🧠 Work Smarter: This negotiation coach has 7 insights to help you stop leaving 40% on the table.