Rising Tech Stars in SA

BY CHARNDRÉ EMMA KIPPIE

South Africa’s tech sector is booming! We’re rounding up some of the country’s most innovative tech companies to keep an eye on.

TSHEPO MOLOI

STOKFELLA (PTY) LTD.

Founder & CEO of StokFella, Tshepo Moloi, created a mobile app in 2016 as a fintech solution for savings or investment societies in South Africa known as ‘stokvels’.

This tech-savvy approach to participating in the economy allows more than 8,5 million South African citizens to garner wealth, collectively. StokFella has made management, consolidation, communication and the analysis of all stokvel activities and financials easier.

With 7 years experience in Finance, Tshepo has developed a knack for streamlining financial modelling, client value proposition and effective business strategy. Surprisingly, he has also acquired experience in Mining Consulting.

Tshepo’s idea for the StokFella app was a product of his own journey and looking for solutions to many administration hurdles he faced in managing his own stokvel. The conception of the app was also induced by his participation in a 20 year old family stokvel, in Soweto. The main aim of StokFella is to relieve the administrative constraints of coordinating a stokvel. For Tshepo, good admin and financial literacy will provide financial freedom for many South African citizens.

NNEILE NKHOLISE

3DIMO

Nneile Nkholise is known as the iMed Tech mogul hailing from Thaba Nchu, Free State. As an impactful female entrepreneur, she is the founder of Likoebe Innovations, an organisation specialising in creating state-of-the-art products in medical and educational sectors.

She is also the founder of 3DIMO, which is a sport tech company providing tracking and insurance solutions for athletes during training, and at tournaments, to ensure that their livelihoods are secured, and for sports clubs to make sure that their investments are safeguarded. 3DIMO’s software solution aims to assist medical specialists in planning for complex bone surgeries, reducing the timespan of surgical procedures by enhancing efficacy, and decreasing risks involved in complicated surgical procedures - all by using 3D virtual models.

Beyond entrepreneurship, Nneile is a brand ambassador of the South African government National Development Plan 2030. She also serves on the board of Rhulani Mokwena Foundation. She has been formally acknowledged for being one of the top MedTech entrepreneurs in South Africa by Discovery, and was celebrated as one of the Top 40 innovators by Ventures Africa, in 2017. In 2018, Nneile also awarded the Forbes Africa’s 30 under 30, recognised in the 100 top young Africans by the Africa Youth Council, and was deemed Industrialist of the Year in Southern Africa at the All Africa Business Leaders Awards.

TUMI SINEKE

OFFERZEN FOUNDATION

The OfferZen Foundation is an ingenious tech job marketplace from which thousands of South African and Dutch companies hire staff members.

The online recruitment model holds a community of more than 100 000 candidates. The digital platform curates all candidates to make sure that employers see South Africa’s top tech talent who are actively looking to join the workforce.

OfferZen offers a level of transparency that allows candidates to be in control throughout the entire recruitment process. It’s candidate features include salary comparisons, information on employers’ work environments, opportunities to upskill and additional perks at different companies - it’s all about being empowered to make informed decisions about your personal growth and career. On the other hand, employers also gain exclusive access to high quality developers, designers, data scientists and product managers who are ready to interview.

Head of OfferZen Foundation, Tumi Sineke, is a strategist, writer and facilitator who is passionate about agency and making a positive impact in people’s lives. In previous years, she held positions at Pearson Education South Africa and EF Education First. She completed a BA International Relations & Diplomacy degree at the University of South Africa (UNISA), and has certifications in Agile Project Management, Front-end Foundations, and UX Design Techniques.

ANTOINE PAILLUSSEAU

FINCHATBOT

FinChatBot is known as South Africa’s leading service provider in enabling financial clients to seamlessly connect with and provide immediate value to its customers.

FinChat Bot works closely with some of the biggest businesses and organisations in South Africa, such as MTN, Sanlam, and Hollard. With customer-centric conversational AI solutions, FinChatBot assists clients with successfully generating revenue and driving growth through increased conversion rates, enhanced customer acquisition and retention rates, and decreased operational costs.

In March 2021, FinChatBot teamed up with The Nashua Children’s Charity Foundation (NCCF) and Ozowo to develop an innovative end-to-end conversational-AI donation solution, known as NASH. This user-friendly AI solution enables benefactors to donate to the NCCF in a matter of seconds from their desktop PC or smartphone device.

Co-founder and CEO of FinChatBot, Antoine Paillusseau, is the seasoned entrepreneur behind the major success of the business. Antoine is passionate about Business Strategy, and has experience in Sales Management and Venture building across both Africa and Europe. In 2016, he founded Far Ventures with business partner Romain Diaz. Prior to this venture and the FinChatBot business, he also Co-Founded TimeOne South Africa, which is an awardwinning online marketing agency, based in Cape Town.

MARIA DE WET

EXAMSTA

Marie de Wet is the phenomenal STEM educator, learning platform designer and educational content creator behind the Examsta platform.

Examsta is an innovative learning app which enables learners to revise and retain educational content, included in the relevant curriculum, for the SA National and IEB exams. At present, the service is completely free, and provides questionnaires to prepare students in Grade 10, 11, and 12 who have selected Life Science as one of their subjects.

Examsta is on the road to becoming ‘a zero-rated platform’, which means that all data costs will be eliminated, enabling underprivileged learners to gain access to the resources provided on the app. Additionally, a teacher’s platform is in the works so that the app can assist learners more effectively and monitor their progress.

Marie, a former Science and Mathematics educator, is extremely passionate about education, and takes pride in being able to offer children the most impactful learning experiences possible. She has been deemed a ‘teacherpreneur’, as she remains committed to goals which include using technology to uplift underprivileged South African learners so that they may get the chance to achieve exemplary grades to qualify for university entrance. Marie was recently awarded the MTN app of-the-year award for Best Woman in STEM.

GIFT LUBELE

KUDOTI

Founded in 2019, by serial entrepreneur Gift Lubele, Kudoti is a pioneering Johannesburg-based platform which provides access to a vast network of recycling stakeholders, which includes recyclers and brands, local aggregators and individual collectors. The digital platform has done wonders for South Africa thus far, empowering citizens to purchase and sell recovered waste resources.

The platform enables direct collaboration across the network, matches supply and demand of recyclable waste in real-time and effectively identifies investment needs, making recycling convenient, rewarding and profitable. The startup has been named one of the most innovative companies in 2020 by Fast Company.

As a result of his innovation, in successfully merging tech and responsible ecological practices, Co-founder and COO Gift Lubele has been recognised as one of the most influential young South Africans. To date he has received several awards, such as the 2020 BRICS Young Innovator Award, being included in Fast Company’s Top 20 under 30 Entrepreneurs, as well as making the 100 Most Influential Young South Africans List. Gift also serves as an Advisory Board Member at the African Leadership Academy, and is a former Research Engineer of Dimension Data.