Start-up M4Jam, which launched commercial services this week, is hoping to make a dent in South Africa’s unemployment crisis. The company — its name is short for “money for jam” offers people with smartphones jobs that take a short period to complete. Started by 44-year-old entrepreneur Andre Hugo, the idea is to provide
Browsing: Start-ups
South African start-up WhichBroadband will go live on Monday, showcasing consumers’ broadband choices in an effort to take the complexity out of making a buying decision. The concept was developed as early as 2007 when Clinton Bemont, a metallurgy lecturer at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, was looking for a comparison of all broadband
A new local application, Appetite, wants to give hungry South Africans easy access to their favourite takeaway joints, right from their smartphones. The app, which has been been in development for the past 18 months
Last week, Internet service provider Afrihost made headlines for launching a R1 999 smartphone that comes bundled with 1GB/month of data for 12 months. Turns out there’s a South African company behind the smartphone, called the Zest T1. Zest Mobile, a start-up founded just a year ago, is catering
South Africa has plenty of sunshine, and two Port Elizabeth-based entrepreneurs want to use this to charge the Millbug Vuya Tablet, a device they conceptualised locally. Vuya means “be happy” in isiXhosa. Millbug was founded in 2012 by Sabelo Sibanda, 30, and Thulisile Volwana, 22. It started as an e-commerce company
Savannah Fund, a seed capital fund specialising in US$25 000 to $500 000 investments in sub-Saharan Africa, has made its first move into South Africa, buying into two Cape Town-based start-ups. The fund, which already has investments in East Africa and West Africa, has invested in e-commerce site
South African start-up Tuluntulu has developed technology it hopes will help propel adoption of video streaming using low-bandwidth connections in emerging markets. Tuluntulu has launched a mobile broadcasting application developed to cater to the needs of mobile video viewers in economies
Ttrumpet, a new mobile application that enjoys the backing of billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe, will be launched in the next few weeks, offering consumers access to voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) services, along with instant messaging and a patented online vouchering system. Co-founder Grant Theis says Ttrumpet
A new start-up, Johannesburg-based Rocmypeer, wants to help consumers advance cash online to each other through a smart “peer to peer” platform that allows people to advance and recoup money from their peers directly. CEO and founder Grant Mashale, a former television producer, says the system also allows small businesses
Cape Town is home to another start-up incubator, this one called Springlab, which wants to help nurture entrepreneurs across the sub-Saharan Africa region. The company’s two founders, Sheraan Amod and Eugen Peterson, bring a wealth of experience from the US and Germany respectively. “We bring two major