Author: Gugu Lourie

The Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SAVCA), in collaboration with Investec and supported by Sanlam Investments, has named AgriTech firm Aerobotics as 2019 Best Startup or Venture Capital Company. SAVCA is the industry body for the private equity and venture capital industry in Southern Africa. Aerobotics is a South African AgriTech company that builds advanced analytics on top of aerial drone and satellite imagery to deliver precision farming tools for clients. In 2018, Nedbank partnered with Aerobotics to conduct an initial experiment by flying drones over pecan nut farms of a prospective agricultural client at the time.…

ProfitShare Partners has secured a R25 million capital line from the Vumela Fund, which is managed by Edge Growth Ventures. Launched in 2018, Vumela’s third fund focuses on supporting high growth SMEs in the banking supply chain with good economic and impact returns – a key driver of ProfitShare Partners value proposition to the SME market. The Vumela Fund is a R588 million Social Venture Capital Fund that Edge Growth manages on behalf of the Vumela Trustees. The fund is a business with the objective of creating stakeholder value by investing in, growing and divesting of SMEs and providing value-added growth…

Health workers in rural and remote areas continue to seek advice from specialists on behalf of their patients. So it’s no surprise that Vula Mobile, a medical referral startup, is seeing its health app gaining traction as more people start to utilise its online services. Vula Mobile is the brainchild of Dr William Mapham, who conceived the idea for the app while working at an Eye Clinic in rural Swaziland. He experienced first-hand the difficulties faced by rural health workers when they need specialist advice. In 2015, the app which was then only available to assist with eye health and…

Jamii Cities, a platform that connects the needs of the best tenants with the best landlords, has been awarded an additional R450 000 of grant funding by AlphaCode. This was after Jamii Cities and other startups completed a AlphaCode Incubate programme, one year of intensive mentorship, startup principles bootcamps and being connected with an extensive network. The eight startups were awarded entrepreneurial packages of R2 million each in 2018. Jamii Cities is a FinTech startup that focuses on property. The business attracts, selects, onboards and rewards tenants for good financial behaviour related to rental payments, which incentivises a longer stay…

Telkom to hold an online auction of its real estate portfolio located nationwide throughout South Africa. The real estate portfolio features ±34 properties consisting of vacant land and single-storey buildings. The properties boast land extents ranging from ±400m² to ±19,000m² and include; vacant land within the Northern Cape: Hartvallei (Jan Kempdorp), Western Cape: Knysna & Graafwater, and Mpumalanga: Delmas. GoIndustry, the auctioneer and agent for the seller, said in a statement that the online auction, lots closes from 26 November 2019. The auction website at Online Auction Of Telkom Real Estate provides continuous access to the property information. GoIndustry…

Telkom has revealed its Big Deal for November 2019 – a 20GB LTE package. The deal is based on a SmartBroadband Wireless 20GB package. If you buy this package you will get: 10GB Anytime data 10GB Night Surfer data for just Huawei E5577 Mi-Fi Modem Price: R139/m x 24m The deal is valid until 31 November 2019 or while stocks last. Users are advised to check Telkom’s LTE coverage map before purchasing the deal to ensure they are in an LTE-covered area.

MTN Group, Africa’s largest mobile phone operator, has terminated talks with Econet Wireless Zimbabwe. As part of its R15 billion fund-raising drive, MTN was in talks with Econet Wireless Zimbabwe to sell its 53% stake in Botswana Mascom. “Econet’s unsolicited offer to acquire our 53% stake in Mascom has been terminated following certain conditions of the sale not being met,” MTN Group CFO Ralph Mupita said on Thursday. MTN had identified Mascom as non-core to its operations after the company embarked on a review of its investment portfolio. Its shareholding didn’t give it control of Mascom and the power to execute…

MTN Group, Africa and the Middle East largest mobile phone operator, announced on Thursday it has added 10.4 million new subscribers for mobile, data and mobile money services for the 9 months to September 2019. The Johannesburg-based company said subscribers rose quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) by 3,5 million to 243,7 million. The company, which is valued at R179 billion on the JSE, added that active data subscribers increased QoQ by 4,7 million to 87,0 million. While active MTN Mobile Money customers rose QoQ by 2,2 million to 31,7 million. The operator said service revenue rose year-on-year (YoY) by 9,6%, with earnings before…

Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures) has led a $40 million (R600 million) investment in ElasticRun, a virtual logistics network that is revolutionising consumer products delivery across India. The funds have been raised with participation from existing investor Avataar Ventures and Kalaari Capital. The new investment round will help the company expand its deeply penetrated logistics network, which is already helping to reshape India’s $300 billion logistics industry. ElasticRun will also use the new funds to further build its technology platform to accommodate new product lines, expand the platform to additional categories, and to evolve its analytics and machine learning platforms to…

PayU, the payments and Fintech business of Prosus, today leads the fresh round of investment worth $11 million (R165 million) through the acquisition of a minority stake in Fisdom, a high growth consumer wealth tech platform in India. In addition to PayU, current investors Saama Capital and Quona Capital also participated in this round. This move marks PayU’s entry into a new segment, wealth tech, and demonstrates the company’s commitment towards investing in and building a broader FinTech ecosystem in India around core payments and lending businesses. Founded by Subramanya SV and Anand Dalmia, Fisdom is a high-growth wealth tech…