Former Internet Solutions (IS) CEO Angus MacRobert has acquired a minority equity stake in fast-growing, Port Elizabeth-based Internet service provider Axxess.

It’s the second investment he’s made in the telecommunications sector after buying a stake in Three6Five Network Solutions last month.

MacRobert (pictured), who left IS in October last year after eight years at the Dimension Data-owned service provider, says the Axxess investment allows him to get involved in SA’s fast-growing broadband market.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

He says Axxess, which is strong in the consumer broadband market with more than 50 000 ADSL subscribers, plans to expand into the small and medium business space and, later, even into the enterprise market. It also wants to provide cellular data services, develop voice-over-Internet Protocol products and offer virtual private networks.

MacRobert says he will be operationally involved in Axxess and the other companies in which he is investing — he has “one or two more” investments he plans to announce soon, he says. “I don’t want to sit in a head office somewhere. I want to be involved at the coalface.”

Axxess has strong connections with MacRobert’s former employer. IS is the company’s primary up-stream provider of bandwidth. And Axxess is headed by Andrew Simpson, who used to manage the Eastern Cape region for IS.

MacRobert’s other investment, Three6Five, is also headed by senior ex-IS staffers — Jeff Fletcher, George Stylianou and Mauritz Lewies founded the business a year ago to provide high-level consulting and engineering support to enterprise customers and Internet service providers. — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral