South African technology entrepreneurs are among the most creative and resilient in the world, with some of the most successful homegrown start-ups having gone on to tackle international markets.
Some choose to stick closely to their South African roots as they grow, never selling the businesses to external investors. Others, however, catch the eye of international suiters, leading to major buyouts that often coincide with company headquarters being moved out of the country.
South African tech companies that attract this level of international interest are often at the leading edge of innovative technologies in software development, payments, the internet of things and engineering. Their founders reap massive rewards for the risks they take and the years of hard work invested into their growth, with acquisitions usually linked with senior international positions as well as substantial increases in personal wealth.
Here, then, is TechCentral’s list of successful South African start-ups that were later acquired by international buyers.
1. Thawte Consulting – VeriSign (1999)
Founded by Mark Shuttleworth in 1995, Thawte Consulting was a digital certificate authority acquired during the dot-com bubble by VeriSign in 1999. The deal was worth a staggering US$575-million, around R3.5-billion at the time, making then 26-year-old Shuttleworth one of the youngest billionaires in the world.
Subsequent to the sale, Shuttleworth famously gifted each of his 57 employees, including cleaners and a gardener, with a R1-million bonus. Three years later, in 2002, Shuttleworth used part of the proceeds from the deal, some $20-million, to fund a trip to space, making him the first Afronaut in history.
2. OrderTalk – Uber (2018)
Founded in 1998, orderTalk focused its business on point-of-sale integration technology. As online food delivery services grew in the 2010s, food delivery companies like Uber had a problem: restaurants would often have a to keep a separate device – usually a tablet – for online orders. When an order came through, a staff member would have to read the order from the tablet and enter it into the POS system manually.
OrderTalk’s software made it possible for the orders customers made via their phones to be shared automatically with the POS system without any manual intervention, reducing the number errors and forgotten orders in the process.
Uber acquired orderTalk in 2018 for an undisclosed amount.
3. iKubu – Garmin (2015)
iKubu is a prime example of South African engineering expertise making waves on the global stage. Founded in 2006 by two University of Pretoria computer engineering graduates, Franz Struwig and Denho Geldenhuys, iKubu’s initial focus was on general computer vision and radar technology. Struwig and Geldenhuys’s passion for cycling had a massive influence on the direction the company would follow, with reducing the number of cyclists hit by motorists from behind becoming a core focus over time.
iKubu’s number one product was the Backtracker, which uses low-energy radar to scan behind a cyclist and flash an LED light with increasing intensity the closer a vehicle gets to the rider. iKubu was sold to Garmin for an undisclosed amount in 2015.
4. Paymentology – SaltPay (2021)
Paymentology is one of the world’s largest issuer processing service providers, offering banks and fintechs the backend technology that allows them to manage cardholder accounts, authorise real-time transactions and handle fraud checks. The company as it exists today was created through the 2021 merger of South African-born emerging markets specialist Tutuka and London-based Paymentology UK. Tutuka was founded in Johannesburg in 1998 by Rowan Brewer and specialised in creating the infrastructure that allowed banks and retailers across Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America to issue Visa and Mastercard products.
Shortly after the merger, Paymentology was acquired by European fintech Teya, known as SaltPay at the time, for an undisclosed amount.
5. Fundamo – Visa (2011)
Fundamo – a combination of the words “fundamentally” and “mobile” – was founded by Hannes van Rensburg in 1999 as an in-house project by insurance giant Sanlam aimed at helping the unbanked by creating the means to use cellphones as bank accounts. Sanlam eventually decided to discontinue the project, but Van Rensberg’s belief in its value led to him negotiating to continue Fundamo as a spin-out company.
Fundamo ran into trouble when its bankers pulled its credit in 2007. The company was saved from near-bankruptcy by a R36-million investment from the Mark Shuttleworth-owned venture capital firm Here Be Dragons. By the time Fundamo was acquired by Visa for US$110-million in an all- cash deal in 2011, Shuttleworth’s R36-million investment had turned into a R190-million payout.
6. CSense Systems – General Electric (2011)
As an engineer wanting to create software that could troubleshoot issues at massive industrial plants, Derick Moolman co-founded CSense Systems in Pretoria in 1997. CSense helped customers in the mining industry make sense of data from IoT devices by pioneering the concept of digital twinning through its use of machine learning models.
CSense’s predictive analytics capabilities caught the attention of General Electric, leading to a 2011 acquisition of the company’s technology and IP assets for an undisclosed amount. As part of the acquisition, Moolman went onto take on senior positions at GE over the next several years. He returned to South Africa in 2017 and founded Stone Three, a developer of AI-augmented solutions for companies in the mining sector.
7. GetSmarter – 2U (2017)
Founded in Cape Town in 2008, GetSmarter is an online education platform specialising in executive-level short courses offered in partnership with some of the world’s leading universities. Compared to competitors like Coursera and Udemy that aim to make online courses more affordable, GetSmarter operates more like a boutique, offering a high-end services characterised by small cohorts and dedicated learner support. GetSmarter’s university partners include the University of Cape Town, Harvard, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford and Oxford.
The company was sold US ed-tech giant 2U for a reported $103-million in 2017. Brother duo cofounders Sam and Rob Paddock remained in leadership roles following the deal, with GetSmarter continuing to operate independently as a wholly owned subsidiary of 2U.
8. DocFox – nCino (2024)
DocFox was co-founded by Wits engineering graduate Ryan Canin alongside Richard Cohen and Gian Cantarin in 2013. The company automates know-your-customer procedures used by the banking sector, ensuring compliance and contributing to reduce rates of fraud. Beyond individual verifications, DocFox specialises in complex structures such as companies and trusts that are generally harder to clear for anti-money laundering compliance.
In 2024, DocFox was sold to US cloud banking giant nCino for $75-million (around R1.3-billion at the time). In 2025, DocFox was rebranded to nCino KYC Africa.
9. PaySpace – Deel (2024)
Founded in 2007 by brothers Bruce, Clyde and Warren van Wyk alongside George Karageorgiades, PaySpace was one of the first cloud-native payroll systems globally at launch. Over 15 years, PaySpace built the technical infrastructure to effect efficient payroll and payments processes in 44 countries. This technical advantage attracted the attention of US-based global HR and payroll platform Deel, which sought to integrate PaySpace infrastructure into its stack to eliminate its reliance on third-party payments services in a number of its operating countries.
PaySpace was sold to Deel for more than $100-million (then R1.9-billion) in 2024. The Van Wyk brothers remain in the company in key leadership roles with the PaySpace team serving as the engineering hub for Deel’s global operations.
10. Nimbula – Oracle (2013)
Founded in the early days of cloud technology, Nimbula allowed large enterprises to manage their on-premises infrastructure in ways similar to what was offered by cloud services providers like Amazon Web Services. The company’s history is closely tied to AWS, with co-founders Chris Pinkham and Willem van Biljon being core members of the Cape Town-based team that created AWS’s original Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).
Read: 19-year-old Capetonian’s AI start-up wins Y Combinator backing
The company was sold to Oracle in 2013, only five years after it was founded, for an estimated $110-million (just over R1-billion at the time). The Nimbula team was integrated into the Oracle ecosystem, with Pinkham serving as a senior vice president for a year before moving onto be vice president of engineering at Twitter – a role he stayed in until 2017. Van Biljon came back to South Africa and served as co-CEO and chief technology officer of Takealot Group between 2014 and 2017. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media
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