Endeavor South Africa
Dream Big. Sale Up. Pay it forward.
September 2021 Newsletter
Dear Friends of Endeavor,
It has been a triumphant quarter for Endeavor South Africa. For starters, one of our very own Endeavor Entrepreneurs, Go1, achieved unicorn status — the first in South Africa and one of five this year from the African continent including Flutterwave (Endeavor Nigeria), SWVL (Endeavor Egypt), Opay (Nigeria) and most recently, Wave (Senegal). Go1 closed a $200m Series D round lead by Softbank. Among the investors was Endeavor Harvest Fund II, making it the fund’s third investment after Flexclub and Sendmarc. Additionally, Go1 co-founder Melvyn Lubega was officially welcomed onto the Endeavor Board where he will be injecting a fresh new entrepreneurial eye — a true example of paying it forward and giving back, Endeavor-style!
Speaking of Africa, we have seen massive expansion amongst several of our Endeavor Entrepreneurs into various parts of the continent. InnoVent has opened offices in Zambia and Nigeria, while SweepSouth is poised to launch in Nigeria in the coming months and their Kenyan office is performing well. MFS Africa has also teamed up with Global Technology Partners (GTP) and Afrimoney to deepen its penetration across Africa. Additionally, Ozow plans to expand into countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and West Africa, establishing partnerships with Hello Paisa and Clickatell amongst others. Pargo is exploring African opportunities for last mile logistics in East Africa, while Local Scale Up entrepreneur, Aura, has partnered with KK Security in Kenya to build out its rapid response solution. Flutterwave (Endeavor Nigeria) has teamed up with MTN in a number of Central and West African markets.
Some of our Endeavor Entrepreneurs are also expanding their horizons beyond African shores with Hello Paisa partnering with MFS Africa to facilitate cross-border payments between South Africa, the UK and the Middle East. What’s more, Entersekt is now offering financial institutions in Norway a unified approach to managing identification protocols. With South African tech-enabled entrepreneurs now being closer than ever to international markets, we don’t see this trend stopping anytime soon.
We couldn’t be prouder of our 29 Endeavor Entrepreneurs and are delighted to report that the number of entrepreneurs we now support has skyrocketed to 72 with the addition of those participating in the Local Scale UP, FNB Business Elevator, JSE Ignite, SA SME Fund CEO Circle and the UK-South Africa Tech Hub programmes. With these and other initiatives being backed by the likes of the SA SME Fund, FNB, Allan Gray and the JSE, it is heartening to see growing support from corporate South Africa for high-growth entrepreneurs.
As we approach the final quarter of 2021, we’re confident that this is shaping up to be a stellar year!
Kind regards,
Alison Collier
Managing Director: Endeavor South Africa
Go1 — The South African/Australian Edtech Unicorn
Go1 became Endeavor South Africa’s first unicorn with a $200m raise led by Softbank in July 2021. Our Harvest Fund also participated in the company’s Series D2 raise led by Blue Cloud Ventures, a New York-based VC firm. On achieving unicorn status, Go1 co-founder Melvyn Lubega shared: “This raise validates the size of the problem we’re trying to solve and the size of the opportunity to address that problem.” Read more here.
Harvest Fund II Ripens for Success
This quarter, the Endeavor South Africa Harvest Fund II announced its second investment. This time, it was into Endeavor Entrepreneur Sendmarc — Africa’s leading cybersecurity platform. Sendmarc CEO Sam Hutchinson, said: “The latest round of funding gives us a great runway to supercharge our growth path both in South Africa and internationally.” Additionally, the Harvest Fund has raised over R100m and is looking to close at the end of September with six deals already confirmed in the past eight months
Endeavor’s First In-Person MEA Regional MeetUp Aug 2021
From 29–30 August, Endeavor held its first Regional In-person MeetUp. It was a great success with 80 participants from 15 countries including Endeavor Board members, Outliers (highest performing Endeavor Entrepreneurs) and MDs from all the European, Middle East, Egypt and South Africa Offices. A key focus was to establish better connections across the MEA region and through this, enhance market access for the Entrepreneurs to accelerate expansion. The Entrepreneurs attending (including Go1’s Melvyn Lubega) had the opportunity to join the Greek Prime Minister for a private dinner. The Prime Minister was so impressed with Go1’s offering, that he arranged for Melvyn to have a follow up meeting with his ministers the next day to progress the digital upskilling agenda through some of the learning pathways offered through Go1! Here is the full agenda and list of participants (excluding Endeavor MDs) along with the video from the meetup.
Endeavor-backed Entrepreneurs Pay It Forward
With ‘paying it forward’ being one of Endeavor’s core values, entrepreneurs supported by the organisation took it upon themselves to provide aid and assistance during the riots and looting that rocked parts of the country in July. Local Scale Up entrepreneur, Kandua raised more than R130k towards rebuilding South Africa, while Endeavor Entrepreneur Skynamo encouraged its customers to form a community and aid each other where possible.
Corporate SA Supports Entrepreneurs
Endeavor now proudly offers three new structured mentoring programmes — Local Scale Up, FNB Business Elevator Mentorship Programme and the JSE Ignite Programme for High Growth Entrepreneurs — all of which are backed by corporate SA. Launched in June, the FNB Business Elevator Mentorship Programme offers 10 Black-owned early- to mid-stage scalable entrepreneur-led businesses, the opportunity to receive nine months of tailored business mentoring from Endeavor. In September, Endeavor SA and the JSE will be establishing an exciting new multi-year mentoring programme for entrepreneurs. Watch this space.
Endeavor Involved in Developing a Startup Act for SA
Endeavor has joined forces with other startup ecosystem stakeholders to develop a Startup Act for South Africa — a call to the President to unleash the growth and innovation inherent in the country’s entrepreneurs and youth. In addition to radically increasing the contribution to and impact on the national GDP by startups, the Act seeks to address the growth objectives outlined in the National Development Plan. It also strives to leverage and grow the existing ecosystem so that more South African startups can become successful locally and globally. Click here for more information.
iiDENTIFii Becomes Endeavor South Africa’s Newest Entrepreneur
In July, iiDENTIFii were selected as Endeavor Entrepreneurs –the first South African team to join Endeavor in 2021. This makes these serial entrepreneurs, who are also Endeavor Alumni, Endeavor Entrepreneurs for a second time! iiDENTIFii is a world-leading technology solution, offering remote facial biometric digital authentication and automated onboarding for enterprises. Learn more here.
