Author: Gugu Lourie

Naspers announced on Wednesday a R100 million investment in AgriTech business Aerobotics, through its earlystage business funding initiative Naspers Foundry. Aerobotics is a subscription-based artificial intelligence (AI) company that provides intelligent tools for the agricultural industry to manage its crops. Aerobotics, founded by James Paterson and Benji Meltzer in 2014, is a leader in the application of artificial intelligence in agriculture. The insights Aerobotics provides to its clients include tree counts, the identification of missing trees, and the size and health of trees. The company has progressed its technology to engineer fruit counts, and to provide data on fruit size…

South Africa’s FinTech startup Peach Payments announced on Wednesday that it has received funding from fund manager Allan Gray and private equity Umkhathi Wethu (UW Ventures). The company said the growth funding would drive its expansion into the rest of Africa and accelerate product development. “Over the last five years, Peach Payments has proven itself as a payment gateway. The business is well-positioned to take advantage of opportunities across the continent,” explains Nicolaas Botha, who is part of the Allan Gray ventures team. Peach Payments enables global e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento and offers APIs for customized…

South African food retailers have been scrambling to deliver groceries to their customers as demand for online shopping increases during the lockdown. Pick n PayOnline, South Africa’s largest online grocery retailer, announced on Tuesday that it is signing up more online shoppers as more people turn to online convenience during the lockdown. Since the end of March 2020, Pick n Pay’s online shop has had more than 144,000 new customers registered online. This is 8x more registrations than the previous year. Pick n Pay online also experienced a 200% increase in active transacting online customers during the period. For more…

Pick n Pay Online, South Africa’s largest online grocery retailer, announced on Tuesday that it is signing up more online shoppers as more people turn to online convenience during the lockdown. The COVID-19 outbreak has significantly accelerated the demand for online shopping and many shoppers turned to Pick n Pay Online for their grocery shop. Since the end of March 2020, Pick n Pay’s online shop has had more than 144,000 new customers registered online. This is 8x more registrations than the previous year. Pick n Pay online also experienced a 200% increase in active transacting online customers during the period. Last year the retailer significantly enhanced its online offering, which included changing its logistics…

Nedbank has launched a new ‘super app’, called Avo, which will give the bank’s customers to access online shopping, essential services and financial products on a single platform. “Created to bring customers and businesses together, accurately matching customer’s lifestyle needs to product and service offerings through powerful artificial intelligence, safe and secure payments, and bank-grade security.” – Fred Swanepoel, Chief Information Officer of Nedbank. To date, Avo has reached the milestone of over 5 000 customers registered and 170 registered Home Repair and Services merchants. With requests flying in daily, Avo may just be the platform small businesses need to…

In these times of great economic uncertainty, the fibre industry is a great South African success story and proof of how the private sector can drive economic development, says Jessica Spira, Business Development Director at Rand Merchant Bank (RMB). The bank was the joint mandated lead arranger and co-funder of a R16-billion senior debt financing package provided to Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH), concluded in December 2019, to help fund the expansion of their operating companies Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa, the country’s two largest privately-owned providers of fibre infrastructure. “Funders don’t put that kind of money into a business…

Agile Capital, a black-owned private equity firm, is sitting on R900 million cash pile and is hunting for investment opportunities. The Johannesburg-based mid-market private equity investment firm offers a solid investment track record and long-term growth prospects. Agile, which means “to build” in Setswana, was launched in 2015 by passionate and highly-skilled business partners Tshego Sefolo and Londeka Shezi. Agile, through its private equity funds, targets investments across diverse sectors. It has R2,38 billion assets under management. Agile Capital has a capital of about R900-million available for investment into new opportunities. “We have managed to establish ourselves as a respected private…

JSE-listed property group Balwin is slowly building its fibre business. Balwin is a construction and property group focusing on large scale sectional-title residential estates in high-growth, high-density metropolitan nodes in South Africa’s major cities. In 2017, Balwin Properties created Balwin Fibre to own all fibre infrastructure across its estate to become a large fibre network operator in South Africa. The group now generates annuity income by leveraging off its asset base and expanding its service offering to homeowners.  The primary source of annuity income is through the provision of high-speed fibre connectivity to homeowners within Balwin’s estates through Balwin Fibre. …

Inspired by a BBC article, a journalist asked people to share the last “normal photo” on their phones. The #LastNormalPhoto is now trending on Twitter, with thousands of people sharing images of what feels like a different lifetime. The BBC recently asked people to share an image their pre-COVID life, asking for the “last normal photo” in everyone’s camera roll. They then published an article over the weekend with 13 images, and 13 people’s touching stories about those images, from weddings to huge sporting events. Inspired by the article, journalist Robyn Vinter also asked Twitter users to share, and the…

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has ordered all soldiers to return to work as it sets up four field hospitals to deal with COVID-19. The Sunday Independent reports that SANDF is setting up four field hospitals valued at R50 million. The newspaper added that the army is also planning to convert 2010 Soccer World Cup stadiums into countrywide field hospitals. A senior SANDF official told the paper that FNB Stadium and Moses Mabhida Stadium were among the four venues. Two weeks ago President Cyril Ramaphosa warned the country that the “worst is still coming.” The president has deployed…