Winners of the inaugural South African Startup and Investor Awards, an initiative of Startup Club ZA, have been announced. Selected from 60 finalists and through a combination of public voting and adjudication by a 25-person judging committee, the 12 winners are:
AI & Big Data: Melio.ai – Founded in 2019 by Merelda Wu and Harry Lee, Melio specialises in developing and deploying machine learning solutions and their Highwind marketplace lets data professionals find, benchmark and buy existing machine learning models;
Biotech: Maltento – Founded in 2018 by Dean Smorenburg, Maltento aims to overcome the world’s food imbalance by creating intelligent, clean, traceable and functional feed compounds and ingredients using the black soldier;
Climate: Agri-logiq – Founded in 2020 by Joel van der Schyff and Rowan Gracey, Agri-Logiq simplifies the operation of greenhouses and enables modern farming practices through simple, reliable, poly-tunnel greenhouse climate control automation systems;
Ecommerce: Swiftvee – Launched in 2019 by Russel Luck, Swiftvee’s trading platform connects buyers and sellers of livestock in real time and facilitates the purchase and sale of agricultural inputs via PrysWYs, its retail app, reinventing agriculture through technology;
Edtech: Resolute Education – Founded in 2018 by Rajesh Ramakrishnan and Gareth Thomson, Resolute is transforming education for students and educators through immersive coding and robotics programmes and is currently implemented in over 225 schools;
Fintech: Revio – Founded in 2020 by Ruaan Botha and Nicole Dunn, Revio’s payment orchestration platform lets merchants access 70+ payment methods, set up configurable routing and retry rules, and dynamically engage customers throughout the payment journey;
Future of Work: JobJack – Founded in 2018 by Heine Bellingan and Christiaan van den Berg, JobJack is on a mission to employ the world through its online platform for entry-level jobs, servicing over 5,000 employer sites and reaching almost two million user registrations across South Africa;
Healthtech: Zoie Health – Founded in 2021 by Thato Schermer and Nonhlanhla Sitole, Zoie is a digital health platform that uses technology to make women and family health more convenient, affordable and caring, through a combination of virtual consultations, WhatsApp chatbot and pharmaceutical deliveries;
Informal Market: Loop – Founded in 2021 by Imtiyaaz Riley and Jamie Wyngaard, Loop is digitising minibus taxis, providing a seamless, cashless, and safe transaction and fleet management experience for both drivers and commuters in the informal transport sector;
Logistics & Mobility: Tunl – Founded in 2020 by Matthew Davey and Craig Lowman, Tunl unlocks exports for African businesses through an affordable, democratised, digitised and innovative shipping platform and services;
Proptech: Popping – Founded in 2020 by Sihle Majola, Terrence Hlatshwayo and Monde Nyawose, Popping is a pop-up market booking and payments platform that helps market organisers access venues, and small business owners access to respective market stalls;
Investor: Launch Africa Ventures – Founded in 2020 by Zachariah George and Janade Du Plessis, Launch Africa Ventures is a frontier Pan-African fund that invests in early-stage African startups, founded to solve the significant funding gap that exists in the Seed to Series A bridge funding investment landscape. Since launching, Launch Africa has earned the title of most active VC in Africa – having invested in 133 startups in 20 African countries – many of whom are South African.