Get 250+ investors tailored to your startup

Invest in your industry and stage
Emails & contact info included
Excel and CSV export
Automatically

Trusted by 3,000+ startups

Top 20 Retail Startup Investors in South Africa in January 2026

Last updated: Jan 2026 A list of 20 angel investors and VC (Venture Capital) funds that invest in Retail startups based in South africa. We rank investors based on the number of investments they made in Retail companies from South africa. We update this investor list every month.

Top 20 Retail Startup Investors in South Africa in January 2026

Investor	Retail South Africa investments
Vinny Lingham	2
TLcom Capital Partners	2
Flourish Ventures	2
Tushar Ahluwalia	1
CRE Venture Capital	1
Vikram Chopra	1
Leonard Stiegeler	1
Presight Capital	1
Newtown Partners	1
Ignition Partners	1
Mato Perić	1
Icon Ventures	1
Llew Claasen	1
Michael Jordaan	1
Polo Leteka	1
Vumela Fund	1
Oliver Merkel	1
Crossfin Technology	1
FJ Labs	1
Jean-Paul Zammitt	1

Find investors that fund startups like yours. Automatically.

Our algorithm will find investors that invest in your industry, stage, and geography.

Investor list

Vinny Lingham is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rumi.ai(Waitroom). He previously worked at YPO as a Member. Vinny Lingham attended Harvard Business School Executive Education.

Investment focus

Blockchain, Internet, Cryptocurrency
Seed, Funding Round, Angel
United States, South Africa, United Kingdom

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.

TLcom Capital, is an Africa focused tech VC, with offices in Lagos, Nairobi and London. TLcom had been investing since 1999 in Tech, Media, Mobil and Internet companies across Europe, US and Africa, which is the exclusive focus of its most recent TLcom TIDE Africa funds. TLcom manages total commitments of approximately 300 million USD in thesesectors via a series of dedicated investment vehicles. Our investment strategy is to identify, back and assist world class entrepreneurs and management teams with disruptive technologies and business models, compelling intellectual property and deep market knowledge. We primarily target companies focused on Africa as a prime market, in the following investment themes: Access to Data Service; Financial Services; eCommerce; B2C applications (including but not limited to: health, education, energy, media and entertainment); and Software solutions to corporates and SMEs.

Investment focus

Software, Mobile, Information Technology
Series A, Funding Round, Seed
Nigeria, United States, United Kingdom

Portfolio highlights

Hub2.Io — Welcome to HUB2, the leading FINTECH startup in interoperability and payment infrastructure in Francophone Africa. We are proud to work with all financial industry players in Africa who need stable and high-performing infrastructure, and contribute to their success.
Talstack — Talstack is an all-in-one platform for employee growth and development
littlefishapp — Littlefish is a comprehensive commerce platform that empowers banks to serve small business with tools to streamline operations, drive growth, and enhance customer engagement.

We are an early-stage global venture capital firm investing in fintech founders.

Investment focus

FinTech, Financial Services, Finance
Series A, Series B, Seed
United States, India, Brazil

Portfolio highlights

Liquid — A plataforma definitiva para CFOs maximizarem liquidez e receita.
Reserv — We are a premier claims platform, born from state-of-the-art data intelligence and talent management technology.
CipherOwl Inc — CipherOwl delivers AI-powered digital asset intelligence and automation tools for institutions, helping banks, exchanges, and crypto teams manage risk, ensure compliance, and operate with confidence.

Tushar Ahluwalia is the Co-Founder and CEO at Razor Group.

Investment focus

Retail, InsurTech, Insurance
Seed, Pre-Seed, Angel
Germany, Mexico, South Africa

Portfolio highlights

NUMOS — NUMOS is an insurance tech platform.
Xaver — Xaver enables Financial Institutions to close Europe’s pension gap. By offering an advanced AI-driven B2B platform for life insurance and private pension sales, Xaver enhances the operational and sales efficiency of banks, insurers, and brokers by up to 65% and introduces a new era of white-labeled private pension products.With a leadership teamof experienced industry veterans - Max Bachem, Ole Breulmann, and Dr. Björn Holste - and backing from leading VC funds and a prominent group of former financial institution executives, fintech pioneers, and unicorn founders, Xaver is dedicated to improving the pension situation of Europeans through their B2B offering.
Faro — Every garment deserves to be worn. Leveraging technology and a specialised supply chain, FARO enables brands to offload obsolete inventory through stores in non-core markets, ensuring complete traceability throughout the process.

Founded in 2015, CRE Venture Capital invests in early stage tech companies that are levered to Africa. CRE is headquartered in the New York metro area, with a regional office in Lagos, Nigeria.

Investment focus

Financial Services, FinTech, E-Commerce
Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
South Africa, Nigeria, United States

Portfolio highlights

Andela — Unlock the power of global tech talent with Andela. Hire experienced professionals quickly and cost-effectively. Build your team from our robust network of skilled specialists spanning 175 countries. Our AI-powered platform ensures a 96% talent match success rate. Get started now and hire with confidence.
Flowcart — Sukhiba is a decentralized community-based commerce platform.
Cutstruct — Cutstruct is your one source for bulk construction materials purchase. Get the best prices for cement, steel, granite, sharp sand wood, and more.

Vikram Chopra is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CARS24. He is a former Co-FOunder of FabFurnish and Investment Analyst of Sequoia Capital and was Business Analyst at McKinsey & Company.Mr. Chopra received a BTech and MTech in Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and earned an MBA in Finance at the Universityof Pennsylvania - The Wharton School.

Investment focus

Internet, E-Commerce, Fashion
Seed, Series B
India, South Africa

Portfolio highlights

Cautio — Cautio is a Visual Telematics company that provides safety and security to drivers and passengers.
Ninecamp — Ninecamp is a food and beverage company. They anticipate creating new and unique brands with a strong emphasis on high-quality offerings in product, service, and design.
Faro — Every garment deserves to be worn. Leveraging technology and a specialised supply chain, FARO enables brands to offload obsolete inventory through stores in non-core markets, ensuring complete traceability throughout the process.

Leonard Stiegeler is the Founder of Pulse, the leading innovative media company in Africa. He is backing & investing in media-/art-/technology- & -enabled ventures/assets. Some of his interests include Business Insider Africa, Art News Africa and Digital News Africa. Prior, he was the General Manager of Swiss Ringier AfricaAG since 2016 – responsible for buiding up the group's business on the continent. Ringier is today active in 8 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and through its ROAM-holding leads brands such as Jobberman, Cheki, Private Property, BuyRentKenya, Pigiame, ZoomTanzania, and many more. Prior to his work with Ringier since 2013, Leo helped to establish Rocket Internet and other German investors in Africa. Leo is originally from Germany and has been based in different African countries since 2011.

Investment focus

Financial Services, FinTech, Credit
Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
Nigeria, South Africa, United States

Portfolio highlights

Bamba — Bamba is an android application allowing micro-merchants across Africa to run their entire business utilizing their phones. It focuses on simple tools for merchants to manage their customers, get paid, payout as well as takeout cash advances against their future cash flow.
Faro — Every garment deserves to be worn. Leveraging technology and a specialised supply chain, FARO enables brands to offload obsolete inventory through stores in non-core markets, ensuring complete traceability throughout the process.
Finclusion Group — Enhancing financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa through data driven lending.

A simple static landing page for Presight Capital.

Investment focus

Biotechnology, Health Care, Financial Services
Seed, Series A, Series B
United States, United Kingdom, Germany

Portfolio highlights

Divibank — Divibank is a financing platform offering businesses access to growth capital.
Tern Group — Tern Group is an AI Platform to hire and relocate top healthcare talents globally, faster and cheaper. TERN is a full-stack solution to source and relocate top-tier medical and engineering talent from India, North Africa, South Africa, and Central Asia and the approach ensures a seamless, ethical, and transparent migration process, drasticallycutting complexity and shaving costs for healthcare systems.
General Fusion — General Fusion is developing fusion energy: a clean, safe, abundant and on-demand approach to generating electricity.

Newtown Partners is a venture capital firm that actively invests in emerging, disruptive technology startups.

Investment focus

Logistics, Health Care, Information Technology
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
South Africa, Ghana, Kenya

Portfolio highlights

MDaaS Global — At MDaaS Global, we build and operate modern, tech-enabled diagnostic centres in clinically-underserved communities, starting in Nigeria. Our big goal is to create affordable healthcare solutions for Africa's next billion.
Chefaa — Chefaa is a GPS-enabled pharmacy benefits platform connecting patients & pharmacies nation-wide to help patients manage all their pharmacy needs. Chefaa uses big data, data ming & machine learning
Waspito — We are the platform that engages Africa into the conversation and action to drive affordable and accessible quality healthcare across the continent.

Ignition is a venture capital firm dedicated to helping the best entrepreneurs seize opportunity. With over $2B under management, Ignition invests in emerging and future leaders in enterprise software.Ignition brings together an unparalleled combination of domain focus, technical expertise, and global operational experience. Ignition'spartners are proven business leaders who have built some of the world's most successful businesses of the last two decades, including Microsoft Windows and Office, McCaw Cellular Communications, AT&T Wireless and Starbucks.Ignition helps entrepreneurs by turning their early idea into a business, to hiring the right team, providing the right industry and functional insight and connections, to growing the business strategically, globally, financially, to realizing the best ultimate outcome, Ignition is ready to go the distance.

Investment focus

Software, Enterprise Software, SaaS
Series B, Series A, Series C
United States, Canada, United Kingdom

Portfolio highlights

Skytap — Skytap is the best cloud service to run IBM Power and x86 workloads natively in the public cloud. Explore our solutions today.
Hipmunk — Hipmunk is a travel search site that aims to take the agony out of travel planning. Their mission is to help people book travel faster and more efficiently. Hipmunk was designed to help people who are overwhelmed with pages of irrelevant search results. Hipmunk presents flight results in a visual timeline that allows people to select the bestflight for them at a glance. Hotel results are shown on a map so that people can view wherein a destination they will be staying and the landmarks near them.
mFoundry — mFoundry is the most popular mobile banking solution in the U.S., the choice of more than 800 banks and credit unions nationwide. mFoundry's award-winning mBanking platform is the leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) mobile banking solution in the financial services industry today.mFoundry has an extensive partner network that includesFIS, Open Solutions, COCC, PSCU Financial Services, NCR, CO-OP, First Data and PayPal. These partnerships, combined with its extensive implementation experience and flexible SaaS-based architecture help it deploy mobile banking solutions quickly.While known best for its mobile banking innovation, mFoundry has also demonstrated leadership in mobile payments, leading Starbucks Card Mobile, the most successful mobile payments program to date, currently used across more than 6,800 Starbucks.mFoundry was founded in 2004 by Drew Sievers and Rodney Aiglstorfer. The company is headquartered in Larkspur, California, with additional offices in downtown San Francisco. For more information, please visit http://www.mfoundry.com.

Mato invests in technology companies globally. His portfolio companies have raised over US$ 5 billion in capital, employ >15,000 people and have operations in 35 countries across six continents.

Investment focus

Financial Services, FinTech, E-Commerce
Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
Germany, India, United Kingdom

Portfolio highlights

Faro — Every garment deserves to be worn. Leveraging technology and a specialised supply chain, FARO enables brands to offload obsolete inventory through stores in non-core markets, ensuring complete traceability throughout the process.
Tern Group — Tern Group is an AI Platform to hire and relocate top healthcare talents globally, faster and cheaper. TERN is a full-stack solution to source and relocate top-tier medical and engineering talent from India, North Africa, South Africa, and Central Asia and the approach ensures a seamless, ethical, and transparent migration process, drasticallycutting complexity and shaving costs for healthcare systems.
Bamba — Today, organizations spend a lot of money on physical data gathering exercises using old-fashioned paper-based methods. These methods result in expensive, severely delayed and incomplete data . With Bamba, a client can launch a data collection exercise anywhere in the world simply from the comfort of their web browser and the client can ensureindividuals respond with complete answers by paying those individuals for that data with mobile airtime in 122 different countries thus far.

The road to success is long. Re-defining an industry requires passion, perseverance, and true grit. At Icon Ventures, we help entrepreneurs with true grit navigate the journey to become icons of tomorrow.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Enterprise Software
Series C, Series B, Series D
United States, Israel, Canada

Portfolio highlights

Medeloop — Medeloop is an end-to-end AI-driven platform for early stage clinical research and trials.
HelloCreator — HelloCreator harnesses the power of AI and LLMs to provide creators with a virtual team to help them navigate the complexity and emotional demands of pursuing their craft in the digital world.
Global Worldwide — Global Worldwide have been global leaders in Agriculture, Materials Science, Autonomous Weapon Systems, and Pharmaceutical Testing since our inception in 1945. Each division of the company has led its respective industry through productive, science-based innovation to meet the needs of customers and

Llew is the Managing Partner of Newtown Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm that actively invests in emerging, disruptive technology startup businesses. Founded and run by internationally successful entrepreneurs, Vinny Lingham and Llew Claasen, Newtown Partners has an entrepreneurial focus that goes beyond investment. The team operatesout of offices in Cape Town, South Africa and Sunnyvale, California (Silicon Valley).Llew is a go-to-market strategist with almost two decades of senior management experience in cryptoassets (since 2012), digital product management and digital marketing.He co-founded Clicks2customers (rebranded to www.nmpidigital.com) with Vinny Lingham, now a global digital marketing agency with annual billings in excess of $100 million and Synthasite (rebranded to www.yola.com).Llew is also the former Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation, the original, the oldest and the largest Bitcoin advocacy organization globally, headquartered in San Francisco, U.S.Llew has a Masters degree in the Management of Technology & Innovation and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

Investment focus

Logistics, Health Care, Mobile Apps
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa

Portfolio highlights

MDaaS Global — At MDaaS Global, we build and operate modern, tech-enabled diagnostic centres in clinically-underserved communities, starting in Nigeria. Our big goal is to create affordable healthcare solutions for Africa's next billion.
Chefaa — Chefaa is a GPS-enabled pharmacy benefits platform connecting patients & pharmacies nation-wide to help patients manage all their pharmacy needs. Chefaa uses big data, data ming & machine learning
SweepSouth — Book a home cleaning online from your mobile, tablet or computer. SweepSouth connects you with a cleaner in minutes. Cleaners are experienced, reliable, efficient and insured.

Michael Jordaan, the former banker now heads up a private investment company, Montegray Capital and lends a strategic-hand to various businesses, including as Chairman of Wines of South Africa (WoSA), Chairman of consumer data buro, Compuscan and as Director on the JSE. Michael also actively invests as a partner in AngelHub Ventures, a SouthAfrican based Venture Capital Fund.In 2014 he co-founded a coding apprenticeship program, ProjectcodeX, to grow highly skilled software developers to fuel the digital economy.

Investment focus

SaaS, Education, Financial Services
Seed, Series A
South Africa

Portfolio highlights

VALR — Buy and sell bitcoin, ethereum & more | Pay anyone for free with VALR Pay
Snapplify — Snapplify is at the forefront of edtech solutions in Africa, and specialises in enabling digital learning for individuals and institutions via the largest digital educational marketplace in Africa. As a global edtech company, Snapplify strives for radical inclusion to level the playing field and equip individuals across emerging markets with theworld-class tools they need to collaborate, innovate and thrive. Snapplify’s technology is used in other educational products to facilitate collaboration throughout the educational community.Snapplify for Education’s award-winning platform is already a top choice for institutions integrating digital education into their classrooms. From software to support, Snapplify provides institutions with everything they need to create a secure, collaborative e-learning environment for students. Snapplify’s robust 24-hour-access digital-library solution offers thousands of free ebooks and widely applicable, curriculum-approved educational content supplied by partner publishers from across the globe. Snapplify’s diversity of device integration allows schools to use its products on the devices that they already have access to, without having to invest in costly digital infrastructure upgrades. Snapplify’s solutions are industry celebrated and globally recognised for their innovation in technology.In order to achieve its educational goals, Snapplify has built strong relationships with diverse partners around the growth of its ebook, e-textbook, and device catalogue, and partnered with international publishers and other key stakeholders to meet the demand for widely relevant, curriculum-compliant digital educational content. As a socially minded company, Snapplify is committed to supporting others and creating sustainable change through collaboration and innovation. Snapplify empowers, inspires, and uplifts teachers via Teacha! (a media hub, resource marketplace, and careers portal for educators); is the digital content partner on a project that delivers technology and e-learning to public schools in South Africa’s Gauteng province, and runs impact programmes through the Snapplify Foundation.Snapplify originated in South Africa, focusing initially on the South African education and digital content industries. Since its establishment in 2012, the company has grown and expanded into new markets in Africa and the United States, with offices across South Africa, as well as in Nairobi, London, Amsterdam and New Jersey. Snapplify is backed by AngelHub Ventures, a venture capital company backed by former First National Bank CEO Michael Jordaan and the Harris family, as well as international investors. In 2019, Snapplify secured $2 million expansion capital from venture capital firm Knife Capital, and empowered African investment manager Hlayisani Capital’s Hlayisani Growth Fund.Snapplify for Education’s award-winning platform is already a top choice for institutions integrating digital education into their classrooms. From software to support, Snapplify provides institutions with everything they need to create a secure, collaborative e-learning environment for students. Through Snapplify’s e-learning and digital library solution, Engage, educators can share teacher-created, multimedia resource materials with students; administrators can manage the access and permissions for multiple student and staff accounts; schools can host their own 24-hour access digital content library (which comes with over 50 000 free resources including study guides, e-textbooks, past exam papers for multiple curricula, children’s books in African languages and more); and students and parents can purchase prescribed e-textbooks. Snapplify’s diversity of device integration allows schools to use its products on the devices that they already have access to, without having to invest in costly digital infrastructure upgrades. Snapplify’s solutions are industry celebrated and globally recognised for their innovation in technology.
Real Time Wine — Share your wine moments. Real Time Wine is the social wine discovery app for everyone who enjoys wine, not just those who understand it. [In App Stores NOW!]

Polo Leteka is the Founder and Chairman of IDF Capital SA. She previously worked at Standard Bank of South Africa. Polo Leteka attended the University of South Africa/Universiteit van Suid-Afrika.

Investment focus

Retail, Internet, Logistics
Seed, Series B
South Africa

Portfolio highlights

SweepSouth — Book a home cleaning online from your mobile, tablet or computer. SweepSouth connects you with a cleaner in minutes. Cleaners are experienced, reliable, efficient and insured.

Vumela was established in 2009 by FNB Business Banking and Edge Growth. The objective was to create an innovative model for the development of a sustainable and a financially and operationally independent investment business which invests in high growth small, medium and micro size enterprises with good economic and impact returns.Vumela wascapitalised in 2010. Within the first four years, we’d invested R90 million into eight high growth SMEs, and created a total of 400 jobs. They launched their second fund in 2015, after a further investment of R100 million from FirstRand and R127 million from the Jobs Fund. Within the first year of launching this second fund, we’ve committed R43 million to five investments that are expected to create over 1800 new jobs.The first fund of its kind in South Africa, Vumela’s main goals are to invest in and develop entrepreneurial companies in order to help alleviate poverty in South Africa by creating jobs, and to generate a return for its beneficiaries: the Shalamuka Foundation and the FirstRand Group.

Investment focus

Education, Software, Primary Education
Funding Round, Seed, Debt Financing
South Africa, Brazil

Portfolio highlights

Rentoza — We champion giving you access, affordability and flexibility to explore tech on your own terms
Kombo King — Kombo King Ventless Fryer Tech removes the need for plumes of steam & the constant eye of an inconsistent employee to Revolutionize & solve the frying industry!
Kusini Water — Kusini Water builds water treatment systems from nanotechnology and macadamia nut shells.

Oliver Merkel is the Co-Founder of Flink Food.

Investment focus

Fashion, Retail, Delivery
Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
Germany, South Africa, United Kingdom

Portfolio highlights

karla — karla gives you the absolute superpower over the delivery of your online orders, It develop the delivery options for your online orders that you have never dared to dream of!
Enter — baupal seeks to democratize sustainable and customized architecture, making design, energy assessments, permitting and cost evaluations more accessible and straightforward for private builders and smaller construction projects. baupal is an online building application service that takes advantage of digital processes and efficient team structuresto streamline design, planning and permitting processes for a range of small-scale projects.baupal was established in December, 2020 in Berlin, Germany.
Faro — Every garment deserves to be worn. Leveraging technology and a specialised supply chain, FARO enables brands to offload obsolete inventory through stores in non-core markets, ensuring complete traceability throughout the process.

Crossfin invests in FINTECH solutions to enable growth for economies in Africa and beyond. Crossfin invests in high growth and established cash generative businesses, offering investors a blended exposure to technology investments in Fintech.

Investment focus

Payments, Financial Services, Information Technology
Funding Round, Series A, Private Equity
South Africa, United States, Russian Federation

Portfolio highlights

Adumo — We are your expert partner in payments, enabling you to seamlessly and securely accept payments in-store and online with our true omni-channel experience. Never miss a sale with South Africa's largest independent payments processor.
VantagePay — VantagePay provides white-label payment and technology solutions to the Banking, Telco, Financial Services, and Consumer Product Industries.
Momint — Momint is the Web3 investment platform of the future. The safest and easiest to use NFT marketplace in the world. Discover the real-world potential of NFTs.

FJ Labs is a stage-agnostic investment firm that focuses on marketplaces and consumer facing startups.

Investment focus

Software, E-Commerce, Financial Services
Seed, Series A, Series B
United States, Brazil, United Kingdom

Portfolio highlights

Secfi — Secfi is the leading provider of equity education and stock option financing. Get the expertise, planning, and cash to own your startup stock options with confidence.
Clutch — Clutch is a Toronto-based technology company that is reinventing the way people buy and own cars. Clutch offers high-quality certified vehicles at great prices through a fully online customer experience. At Clutch.ca, customers browse inventory online, buy the car that’s right for them, and enjoy effortless at-home delivery. Clutch’s mission is toprovide customers with a delightful car buying experience by offering high-quality cars at great prices with ultimate convenience while making a positive impact on the communities in which it operates.
Transparency Analytics — Transparency Analytics is a new company dedicated to measuring risk and delivering transparent, technology-driven solutions for clients in the evolving world of private credit.

Jean-Paul Zammitt

Investment focus

Retail, Fashion
Seed
South Africa

Portfolio highlights

Faro — Every garment deserves to be worn. Leveraging technology and a specialised supply chain, FARO enables brands to offload obsolete inventory through stores in non-core markets, ensuring complete traceability throughout the process.

Investors by industry

Community

Artificial intelligence