BriteGaze, the artificial intelligence venture launched by former Liquid Telecom South Africa CEO Reshaad Sha, said on Monday that it has completed a feasibility study for the launch of BriteGaze Fund One.

The fund, which has a target of raising R500-million in investment capital, will focus mainly on helping businesses in the AI space in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa.

Sha, who leads BriteGaze as CEO, said he expects the company will meet the R500-million funding target in the “coming months”. While its focus is on businesses initially in South Africa, “there are already some very interesting companies solving complex issues in other parts of the continent” that it will target to assist in the acceleration of those businesses.

Sha said there is an exponential growth in the volume of data being produced worldwide, but little of this is being analysed and put to good use. “There is no way for human beings to even process this volume of data, let alone interpret the results from the analysis of this data. This is where AI comes into play. AI companies are developing solutions to process, learn from, react to and to a large extent autonomously take decisions based on the data ingested.”

In addition to working with existing companies in the AI field, Sha said BriteGaze wants to “co-create with those partners” solutions for “large challenges that the telecommunications industry is facing today”.

Resigned

Sha resigned from Liquid Telecom earlier this year after serving as CEO of the South African subsidiary since 2018. He joined Liquid Telecom a year after the group dramatically expanded its presence in South Africa through the R6.5-billion acquisition of Neotel.