Top 5 Proptech Angel Investors in South Africa (October 2023)

Vinny Lingham is Co-Founder & CEO at Civic. He was the founder and CEO of Gyft, a mobile gift card app that allows customers to buy, store, send and redeem gift cards conveniently from their mobile device. He is also the founder of Yola.com, a web development and hosting company that enables users without prior programming knowledge to developwebsites. Vinny is the recipient of numerous awards, including Top Young ICT Entrepreneur in Africa (2006) and was also a finalist for Men’s Health Best Man (2009) and ICT Personality of the Year in South Africa (2008). He also previously founded Clicks2Customers, which also won the Top Technology Company award in South Africa in 2006. He has previously served on marketing advisory boards for Nasdaq listed Valueclick and Yahoo, was also selected as an Endeavor “High Impact Entrepreneur” in 2006. Vinny studied a B.Com (Information Systems) at the University of Cape Town.

Investment focus

Industry: Blockchain, Internet, Cryptocurrency
Stage:Seed, Angel
Geography: United States, South Africa, United Kingdom

Investor stats

Total investments: 34
Round size: Seed $600k–$3.3M; Angel $125k–$500k
Lead/follow: 3% lead, 97% follow

Portfolio highlights

TipLink — TipLink helps send crypto with a link. Someone with crypto can create a account and send that link to anyone over any platform. It’s like buying a gift card, connect the client's crypto wallet of choice and create a account by depositing how much they want to send.
Afterparty — Your favorite creators are here! Get 1 on 1 unfiltered experiences with creators through Afterparty livestreams or chat 24/7 through AI powered conversations
Collectibles.com — Collectibles.com is a Web3 community and marketplace for collectors and the worldwide collectibles sector.

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Justin is a 31-year old entrepreneur, angel investor and venture capitalist from Cape Town, South Africa. He is founder, MD, board member, advisor, or investor to a wide variety of companies in the global technology sector.Having grown up on a farm, he decided not to complete high-school and instead made the move to the city of Cape Town, topursue his dreams of being an Internet entrepreneur.Despite years of struggles and false starts in the wake of the dotcom crash in 2001, he ultimately went on to successfully launch and grow a pan-African Internet based software company from a garage in the suburbs of Cape Town.Have founded his first startup attempt at the age of 18, Justin has been involved in tech startups and entrepreneurial endeavours ever since.He is today the co-founder and MD of 4Di Group, a diversified investment management group and family office, and co-founding General Partner of early-stage technology venture capital firm 4Di Capital, as well as an active angel investor.As co-founder and Steering Committee Chairman of the Silicon Cape Initiative in 2009, designed to highlight and foster South Africa's nascent emerging tech startup ecosystem, Justin fully believes in South Africa’s potential as a global technology innovation hub.In 2011, he was listed by the Mail & Guardian for the 'Top 200 Young South Africans', and in 2013, listed by Forbes for '30 Under 30: Africa's Best Young Entrepreneurs'.

Investment focus

Industry: FinTech, Financial Services, Security
Stage:Seed, Angel, Series A
Geography: South Africa

Investor stats

Total investments: 8
Round size: Series A $3.4M–$6.4M
Lead/follow: 38% lead, 62% follow

Portfolio highlights

FitKey — FitKey is about helping you find and manage the fitness life that makes you happy, through discovering new classes, studios, and fitness activities. With easy online and mobile booking, FitKey keeps your routine interesting.
TaxTim — Originally funded by Google in 2011, TaxTim is Africa's answer to Making Tax Easy. Answer simple questions one-by-one, in a friendly automated chat, and your tax return is done in minutes. TaxTim has 40% market share of the tax base in South Africa (~4.5m), and has deployed localised versions in Namibia and Nigeria as JVs with PwC previously.TaxTim is integrated with the local revenue service (SARS) for instant electronic tax submissions, and partners with some of SA's largest consumer brands - Airbnb, Momentum, Sanlam, Old Mutual, FNB eBucks - to provide tax services for free or at discount. TaxTim has several business models including B2C, B2B and B2B2C. TaxTim is a compelling and popular consumer brand, with a fully-developed, profitable broker/financial product leads ecosystem.
Ekaya.com — Ekaya exists to make renting simpler, safer and more connected - for everyone.

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Sebastian Stoddart after working for 10 years as a product design consultant for top design consultancies in the US, Netherlands and UK, working for clients such as Samsung, Philips, Smith & Nephew, Compaq and Hewlett Packard, Sebastian formed his own company, albooto.com, to bring innovative products to market.

Investment focus

Industry: Rental, Internet, Analytics
Stage:Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
Geography: United Kingdom, South Africa

Investor stats

Total investments: 4
Lead/follow: 0% lead, 100% follow

Portfolio highlights

8bit — 8Bit is localised content discovery and analytics platform dedicated to the distribution of high-quality content across their network of indie publishers.
Ekaya.com — Ekaya exists to make renting simpler, safer and more connected - for everyone.
Boost Technology — Enabling informal small businesses to thrive in Africa's emerging digital economy

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Yossi Hasson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Metaversal and a Venture Partner at 2048 Ventures. He is also a Non-Executive Director of WeThinkCode_. Prior to that, he was the Managing Director of Techstars. He attended Stanford University Graduate School of Business and the University of Pretoria/Universiteit van Pretoria.

Investment focus

Industry: Financial Services, Blockchain, Payments
Stage:Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A
Geography: South Africa, United States, Ghana

Investor stats

Total investments: 28
Round size: Seed $120k–$539k
Lead/follow: 39% lead, 61% follow

Portfolio highlights

Ozow — i-Pay is an instant EFT payment service in South Africa that allows your customer to make secure online payments directly into your bank account in real time.
Howler — Howler, is the powerful event technology platform designed at the uppermost benchmarks of service and technology to help consumers and event organisers to make moments that matter.
The Sun Exchange — The Sun Exchange is the peer-to-peer solar leasing marketplace. We leverage financial innovation and the power of the crowd to drive sustainable energy development and make the environmental, social and economic benefits of solar accessible and affordable for all. Through the Sun Exchange online platform, anyone, anywhere in the world, can buyremotely-located solar cells and then lease them to power businesses and organisations in sunny emerging markets. Solar cell owners earn income from the electricity that’s generated, while schools, businesses, clinics and other organisations gain access to affordable clean energy, reducing electricity costs and carbon emissions.

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