Update from 2014: Since writing these blogposts on angel investments in South Africa in 2008 and 2011 I became an advisor and Angel Investor at Startup-Incubator Springlab. Please pitch your startup to Springlab, if you’re looking for hands on investors and advice!
Original post from 2008: The future looks bright for tech-startups in South Africa. My friend Thomas Promny sent me the news via email before I saw it on Jens Kunaths Blog (who also lives in Cape Town half the year) today: Hasso Plattner Ventures did just setup an 30 million Euros Venture Capital fund “aimed at early stage companies, not those within the seed stage“. This fits very well into my plans. I intend to invest some of the funds I got from selling gulli.com not only into my own south african projects (weather.co.za being only one of them) but also to help young entrepreneurs to startup their own online-based businesses. But being a seed capital / angel investor alone will not work if there is no infrastructure to support ventures that grow beyond that size and this could be where Hasso Plattner Ventures steps in.
My company in Germany has a proven track record for building high-traffic customer-oriented Portals in various niches and we’ll start using this experience help others to grow on the South African market as well… In March I’ll be back in Cape Town and I hope to meet the first potential partners, though I’ll mainly be there for some well-deserved vacation… 🙂
