Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      The real cost of a cashless economy

      16 July 2025

      Larry Ellison, 80, is now world’s second richest person

      16 July 2025

      Solly Malatsi seeks out-of-court deal in TV migration fight

      15 July 2025

      South Africa’s telcos battle to monetise 5G as 4G suffices for most

      15 July 2025

      Major new electric car brand launching in South Africa

      15 July 2025
    • World

      Grok 4 arrives with bold claims and fresh controversy

      10 July 2025

      Samsung’s bet on folding phones faces major test

      10 July 2025

      Bitcoin pushes higher into record territory

      10 July 2025

      OpenAI to launch web browser in direct challenge to Google Chrome

      10 July 2025

      Cupertino vs Brussels: Apple challenges Big Tech crackdown

      7 July 2025
    • In-depth

      The 1940s visionary who imagined the Information Age

      14 July 2025

      MultiChoice is working on a wholesale overhaul of DStv

      10 July 2025

      Siemens is battling Big Tech for AI supremacy in factories

      24 June 2025

      The algorithm will sing now: why musicians should be worried about AI

      20 June 2025

      Meta bets $72-billion on AI – and investors love it

      17 June 2025
    • TCS

      TCS+ | MVNX on the opportunities in South Africa’s booming MVNO market

      11 July 2025

      TCS | Connecting Saffas – Renier Lombard on The Lekker Network

      7 July 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E4: Takealot’s big Post Office jobs plan

      4 July 2025

      TCS | Tech, townships and tenacity: Spar’s plan to win with Spar2U

      3 July 2025

      TCS+ | First Distribution on the latest and greatest cloud technologies

      27 June 2025
    • Opinion

      A smarter approach to digital transformation in ICT distribution

      15 July 2025

      In defence of equity alternatives for BEE

      30 June 2025

      E-commerce in ICT distribution: enabler or disruptor?

      30 June 2025

      South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

      17 June 2025

      AI and the future of ICT distribution

      16 June 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CambriLearn
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SevenC
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » Start-ups » Start-up Snapt: making money from open source

    Start-up Snapt: making money from open source

    By Editor31 January 2012
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp
    Dave Blakey

    Johannesburg-based open-source software start-up Snapt launched only in August 2011 but already it’s drawing interest from top drawer customers, mainly international clients, including the US National Aeronautics & Space Administration (Nasa).

    The company uses open-source software as a basis to build server and network management software. With all of its marketing and sales activities being Web-based, the company is finding there’s huge demand for free and open-source solutions that are backed by support, particularly from US companies looking to cut costs by avoiding proprietary software solutions.

    Snapt developed one of its two primary products — a front end for server load-balancing called HAProxy — in-house. It ran limited beta tests in the middle of last year and used these as a proof of concept from which to raise venture capital.

    The company got an undisclosed amount of venture capital it was looking for from SA venture capital firm 4Di Capital. CEO and founder Dave Blakey says that although there are a growing number of options for SA companies looking for funding, it remains one of the challenges facing local entrepreneurs.

    He says than in SA a good idea isn’t enough to secure funding and that start-ups need to be able to prove that there is a market for their idea. “South Africans are also more risk averse than, say, US investors. Google got its big break from a US$100 000 cheque written out at a dinner party. SA investors aren’t at that stage; they need reassurance”.

    Snapt employs six people, most of them developers. Blakey himself comes from a developer background and says he saw the need for alternative software solutions for businesses that could be based on open source and other free software but providing after-sales support.

    “I used to work at a company that dealt with networked appliances,” Blakey says. “When we were winning deals against open-source alternatives it was because of missing features in the open-source offering, and that’s the gap Snapt is trying to bridge.”

    Blakey says the company sells its products online exclusively for now, but that it has recently entered into an agreement with a US company that wants to be a reseller. He says Snapt is looking to find resellers in other regions, too, and that some prospective partners have expressed interest in bundling Snapt’s software with hardware and selling it to clients as a whole service solution.

    One of the benefits of using open-source software, according to Blakey, is that it allows the company to reduce costs across the board. “We’re looking at selling a 100Mbit/s load balancer for around $4 000,” says Blakey. “Many of our competitors’ offerings are easily in the $50 000 or more range”.

    Furthermore, he says open-source solutions “almost always allow for better performance” because they needn’t be one-size-fits-all and they manage to avoid the “bloat” that Blakey says one often finds in business-orientated products.

    Though Snapt launched HAProxy first — the software now has around 60 clients — Blakey says he expects its other offering, the open source Web cache and proxy server software Squid, to do better in the long run because it can be added to existing products and is inexpensive.

    “We thought we’d be looking at small and medium-sized enterprises for most of our business, but now we’ve got some big Internet service providers in South America using our products, as well as Nasa.”

    Snapt offers 30-day trials of its products, and Blakey says free accounts are almost always converted to paying ones after the trial period.

    He says Snapt’s products support a wide range of Linux versions, offer images for VMWare virtual machine integration, and says the company is constantly working to make the initial installation process as simple as possible and widening the range of supported platforms and hardware with which its offerings can integrate.

    Nevertheless, Blakey says he’s surprised by just how many Snapt customers have turned out to be less technically inclined than he’d expected. “I thought we’d have very technical clients, but 50% have never actually run Linux before. They’re just fed up with huge licence fees and are looking for an alternative.”

    He says these customers can’t use “pure HAProxy” because it doesn’t provide alerts in the case of a server going down and lacks other essential features like reporting tools. “We want to bridge technically superior open-source products with what businesses actually require.”

    Without its Internet presence and international reach, Blakey says he doesn’t think Snapt would ever have got off the ground because the bulk of its business comes from abroad.

    “Around 55% of our clients are in the US, with another 35% coming from Europe,” he says. He adds that last year, 50% of all software spending came from US companies. Nevertheless, he says the company wants to grow its SA user base as well as its international presence in other markets.

    He says SA is moving towards acceptance of open-source models as an alternative to traditional commercial solutions but the country still has some catching-up to do compared to the developed world.  — Craig Wilson, TechCentral

    • Subscribe to our free daily newsletter
    • Follow us on Twitter or on Google+ or on Facebook
    • Visit our sister website, SportsCentral (still in beta)


    4Di 4Di Capital Dave Blakey HAProxy Nasa Snapt
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleTough times, but tech still booming
    Next Article South Africans still love BlackBerry

    Related Posts

    Why car companies like Toyota are turning to space

    14 February 2025

    Bookmarks | The number of new mobile internet users is stalling

    25 November 2024

    Bookmarks | Firefox at 20 – does Mozilla’s browser still matter?

    14 November 2024
    Company News

    Mental wellness at scale: how Mac fuels October Health’s mission

    15 July 2025

    Banking on LEO: Q-KON transforms financial services connectivity

    14 July 2025

    The future of business calling: Voys brings your landline to the cloud

    14 July 2025
    Opinion

    A smarter approach to digital transformation in ICT distribution

    15 July 2025

    In defence of equity alternatives for BEE

    30 June 2025

    E-commerce in ICT distribution: enabler or disruptor?

    30 June 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.