Top 10 Community Startup Investors in South Africa in May 2026

Portfolio highlights

• Suplyd — Suplyd is a comprehensive digital solution that bridges the gap between restaurant operators and their suppliers in order to disrupt an untouched market with extreme fragmentation and resolve the problem end-to-end.
• Aether Bio — Aether uses its state of the art platform to rapidly engineer enzymes, enabling our customers to manufacture complex and novel products at fractional cost.
• Franc — Franc is the easiest way to save & invest. Our app doesn’t require any investment knowledge & our friendly risk quiz helps us understand how much investment risk is right for you. Users can start investing in less than 2 minutes. There is no minimum requirement & no paperwork. It is a seamless digital experience end-to-end. A usersimply chooses a goal, selects an investment strategy, verifies their identity & makes a deposit. Each user is recommended a personalised investment strategy for each investment goal, combining money market & index tracking ETFs. Our helpful calculators assist clients with their budgeting, retirement & targeted savings needs. We also provide free access to our online academy & fun financial literacy quizzes.We know saving is hard & investing can be scary, which is why we create savings groups & challenges so that users can encourage one another. We also run weekly competitions where users can stand a chance to win a cash prize that will boost their investments.

Portfolio highlights

• Autogrid — AutoGrid Systems organizes energy data and employs big data analytics to generate real-time predictions that create actionable data.The company’s suite of flexibility management applications allows utilities, electricity retailers, renewable energy project developers and energy service providers to deliver cheap, clean and reliable energy bymanaging networked distributed energy resources (DERs) in real time and at scale. AutoGrid applications utilize petabytes of smart meter, sensor and third-party data, along with powerful data science and high-performance computing algorithms, to monitor, predict, optimize and control the operations of millions of assets connected across global energy networks.Established at Stanford University in 2011, they have assembled a team of world-class software architects, electrical and computer engineers, data scientists and energy experts who apply cutting-edge analytics and in-depth energy data science to solve the world’s most critical energy problems.
• 45-8 ENERGY — 45-8 ENERGY is exploring eco-friendly helium for uses in many industries.
• Ampersand — Ampersand catalyzes and power mass-market electric mobility. By supplying the battery swap network and operating system the company makes sustainable mobility rapidly accessible and affordable for developing markets, to improve livelihoods and the environment. With over a million km already covered by e-motorcycles in Africa using our plug-and-playpowertrain and energy network.

Portfolio highlights

• Personera — Talk to AI characters, challenge them in debates, and earn tokens. Socrates, Elon Musk, Shakespeare and 50+ more await you. Try free now.

Portfolio highlights

• 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.
• WizzPass — WizzPass, a rapidly growing leader in the visitor management system and workplace management market is now FMS:Engage powered by FM:Systems.
• The Sun Exchange — We finance, install, and maintain the solar system. You simply pay for the power it generates and save from day one.

Portfolio highlights

• Releaf Earth — We are industrializing food processing in Africa. We've led 1000+ smallholder farmers to provide food factories with >7.5 million kilograms of quality crops.
• MarketForce — MarketForce connects Africa’s informal retail outlets and consumers directly to suppliers of consumer goods and financial services by digitizing orders, delivery, and payments with the aim of solving the last mile distribution challenge.
• SHYFT Power Solutions — SHYFT builds industrial-grade IoT and integrated software to connect and intelligently manage distributed energy resources (DERs) in markets that struggle with resiliency. SHYFT is pioneering the development of integrated decentralized power systems in emerging markets like Nigeria, leapfrogging over traditional central infrastructure and enablingDERs to scale and support existing but unreliable grids.

Portfolio highlights

• Sweatcoin — Sweatcoin is a digital currency backed by physical movement. They verify and convert movement into currency. Users can then donate it to charity, transfer to other users or spend on products, services, and experiences provided by Sweatcoin vendors and user community.Sweatcoin tackles Present Bias by moving the future benefits of exercise into thehere and now- immediately converting movement into a digital currency and changing the perception of physical movement.
• Afterparty — Afterparty is a technology company behind the new Web3 platform enabling creators to directly monetize and manage NFT collector relationships
• Decent Labs — We are rebuilding trust in technology. Decent Labs is developing a more transparent and equitable society by creating startups at the cross-section of financial technology and digital rights.

Portfolio highlights

• Rentoza — We champion giving you access, affordability and flexibility to explore tech on your own terms
• Kusini Water — Kusini Water builds water treatment systems from nanotechnology and macadamia nut shells.
• Trade Shield — Trade Shield's aim is to increase access to trade credit facilities for those companies that most need them and will benefit the most from them.

Portfolio highlights

• Oze — OZÉ brings African small businesses into the digital era. It is an app that makes it easy for businesses to track sales, expenses, and customer information. The data is analyzed to provide tailored recommendations, reports, and business education. If the entrepreneur needs a little extra support, an OZÉ Coach is just a click away. As they are usingOZÉ to manage their business and learn how to run it better, we are learning about them. Using this data and machine learning, we can predict their credit risk and provide them with affordable capital from our banking partners. With over 20,000 registered users, OZÉ is the largest online community of SMEs in Ghana. The most exciting thing is that OZÉ works; 97% of businesses that have used OZE for at least 9 months are growing or profitable or both!
• Root — Launch digital and embedded insurance solutions with omni-channel distribution.
• Afropolitan — Afropolitan is building a Network State to unleash the maximum potential of Africans around the world. Are you interested? Join us with your email.

Portfolio highlights

• Octiv — Turbocharge your fitness business, grow your community and build your brand with Octiv's leading Gym Management Software.
• Outsized — Independent talent for enterprise clients and consulting firms in Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East.
• Simera Sense — Simera Sense develops camera control electronics for optical payload and Cubesat imager solutions.

Portfolio highlights

• Personera — Talk to AI characters, challenge them in debates, and earn tokens. Socrates, Elon Musk, Shakespeare and 50+ more await you. Try free now.
• Swiftly — Harness your public transit data with Swiftly's urban mobility solutions to make your city's mass transportation move more efficiently.
• Appstores.com — Appstores is making it easier for consumers to find apps by giving small and large niche publishers and API/platform companies the tools to showcase apps most relevant to their users.