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South African startup Snapt has raised US$3 million in Series A funding to expand sales and marketing efforts globally, including expansion of its US presence and worldwide channel programme, in addition to key research and development initiatives.

Snapt, which was founded in South Africa in 2012 and is a provider of software-based load balancers and application delivery controllers (ADCs), established an independent sales and marketing arm in the United States (US) in 2015 to cope with increasing demand and last secured investment in 2016 when it raised US$1 million.

As it continues to innovate in the ADC market, the company is working to address the changing nature of network architecture in response to growing data and security concerns, while developing new protocols that define how applications are delivered.

The new US$3 million round sees existing investor Convergence Partners joined by two additional investors – Nedbank, through its Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) division, and Sanari Capital, which specialises in high-growth emerging market opportunities.

“Our continued investment in Snapt is due to our belief in their vision that there is a software revolution happening, and that their software-based ADC helps developers take advantage of this and optimize their applications and infrastructure at the root,” said Andile Ngcaba, chairman of Convergence Partners. “We look forward to working with them during their expansion into new markets and opportunities.”

Johann van Zyl of Nedbank CIB’s venture capital business said Snapt offered a new approach to the ADC market, and has made great progress building a solid product.

“We are impressed by their strong customer traction in enterprise, and are aligned with their vision of a software-based ADC for DevOps. We see tremendous room for innovation as organisations move to the cloud and deploy containers and other new infrastructure. We look forward to partnering with the very dedicated Snapt team during this next phase of growth,” he said.

Currently used by companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies, Snapt has developed an ADC that is easy to use and deploy, and is built around modern models and use cases with key value offerings including flexibility of environments and user empowerment.

“The ADC market is evolving quickly, and Snapt is the perfect product to meet companies’ needs for more advanced ADC solutions that are designed for DevOps, including cloud, cloud-native and virtualized deployments,” said Dave Blakey, Snapt’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO). “We are very pleased to have developed a strong network of partners that can help drive our expansion and support our rapidly growing customer base as we execute the next stage of our IP strategy, ensuring that we continue to bring the most advanced ADC solutions to market.”

The post SA’s Snapt raises $3m Series A funding round appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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South African startup Snapt has raised US$3 million in Series A funding to expand sales and marketing efforts globally, including expansion of its US presence and worldwide channel programme, in addition to key research and development initiatives.

Snapt, which was founded in South Africa in 2012 and is a provider of software-based load balancers and application delivery controllers (ADCs), established an independent sales and marketing arm in the United States (US) in 2015 to cope with increasing demand and last secured investment in 2016 when it raised US$1 million.

As it continues to innovate in the ADC market, the company is working to address the changing nature of network architecture in response to growing data and security concerns, while developing new protocols that define how applications are delivered.

The new US$3 million round sees existing investor Convergence Partners joined by two additional investors – Nedbank, through its Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) division, and Sanari Capital, which specialises in high-growth emerging market opportunities.

“Our continued investment in Snapt is due to our belief in their vision that there is a software revolution happening, and that their software-based ADC helps developers take advantage of this and optimize their applications and infrastructure at the root,” said Andile Ngcaba, chairman of Convergence Partners. “We look forward to working with them during their expansion into new markets and opportunities.”

Johann van Zyl of Nedbank CIB’s venture capital business said Snapt offered a new approach to the ADC market, and has made great progress building a solid product.

“We are impressed by their strong customer traction in enterprise, and are aligned with their vision of a software-based ADC for DevOps. We see tremendous room for innovation as organisations move to the cloud and deploy containers and other new infrastructure. We look forward to partnering with the very dedicated Snapt team during this next phase of growth,” he said.

Currently used by companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies, Snapt has developed an ADC that is easy to use and deploy, and is built around modern models and use cases with key value offerings including flexibility of environments and user empowerment.

“The ADC market is evolving quickly, and Snapt is the perfect product to meet companies’ needs for more advanced ADC solutions that are designed for DevOps, including cloud, cloud-native and virtualized deployments,” said Dave Blakey, Snapt’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO). “We are very pleased to have developed a strong network of partners that can help drive our expansion and support our rapidly growing customer base as we execute the next stage of our IP strategy, ensuring that we continue to bring the most advanced ADC solutions to market.”

The post SA’s Snapt raises $3m Series A funding round appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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South African startup Snapt has raised US$3 million in Series A funding to expand sales and marketing efforts globally, including expansion of its US presence and worldwide channel programme, in addition to key research and development initiatives.

Snapt, which was founded in South Africa in 2012 and is a provider of software-based load balancers and application delivery controllers (ADCs), established an independent sales and marketing arm in the United States (US) in 2015 to cope with increasing demand and last secured investment in 2016 when it raised US$1 million.

As it continues to innovate in the ADC market, the company is working to address the changing nature of network architecture in response to growing data and security concerns, while developing new protocols that define how applications are delivered.

The new US$3 million round sees existing investor Convergence Partners joined by two additional investors – Nedbank, through its Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) division, and Sanari Capital, which specialises in high-growth emerging market opportunities.

“Our continued investment in Snapt is due to our belief in their vision that there is a software revolution happening, and that their software-based ADC helps developers take advantage of this and optimize their applications and infrastructure at the root,” said Andile Ngcaba, chairman of Convergence Partners. “We look forward to working with them during their expansion into new markets and opportunities.”

Johann van Zyl of Nedbank CIB’s venture capital business said Snapt offered a new approach to the ADC market, and has made great progress building a solid product.

“We are impressed by their strong customer traction in enterprise, and are aligned with their vision of a software-based ADC for DevOps. We see tremendous room for innovation as organisations move to the cloud and deploy containers and other new infrastructure. We look forward to partnering with the very dedicated Snapt team during this next phase of growth,” he said.

Currently used by companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies, Snapt has developed an ADC that is easy to use and deploy, and is built around modern models and use cases with key value offerings including flexibility of environments and user empowerment.

“The ADC market is evolving quickly, and Snapt is the perfect product to meet companies’ needs for more advanced ADC solutions that are designed for DevOps, including cloud, cloud-native and virtualized deployments,” said Dave Blakey, Snapt’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO). “We are very pleased to have developed a strong network of partners that can help drive our expansion and support our rapidly growing customer base as we execute the next stage of our IP strategy, ensuring that we continue to bring the most advanced ADC solutions to market.”

The post SA’s Snapt raises $3m Series A funding round appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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Afro-optimism is returning to Africa as the continent looks to leverage its huge youth dividend; however, this potential will not be realised without governments and stakeholders collaborating to remove the issues and hurdles facing young entrepreneurs on the continent, writes Lamin M. Manneh, director at the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) regional service for Africa.

The decade and a half through 2015 witnessed a level of optimism in Africa rarely seen before. During that period, the continent registered unprecedented uninterrupted high rates of economic since 2000, accompanied by relatively stable macroeconomic conditions, in sharp contrasts to the volatilities of the 1980s and 1990s. Consequently, the opportunities for transformation were tangible, national and pan-African visions all pointed to a continent that was potentially self-sufficient and self – confident, with higher levels of shared prosperity for all its citizens and determined to play a greater role in the global arena through reinforced collective actions as envisioned in the continent’s Vision 2063.

Although the continent’s “rising narrative” began to dim with effect from 2015, when economic growth rates started declining dramatically, and it became evident that the much desired meaningful economic transformation proved elusive, the “Afro-optimism” is gradually returning. This is being fueled by renewed hopes for economic transformation, massive infrastructure developments and greater determination to leverage the continent’s potentially huge youth dividend.

Africa boasts the fastest-growing youth population in the world. But there is consensus that for this significant youth dividend to be realised Governments and all the stakeholders have to quickly join hands to effectively address the major issues affecting the youth. Notable among them is the high and persisting levels of unemployment and underemployment. With better enabling conditions put in place and  the requisite investments devoted to creating opportunities for youth and access to other resources, it is quite likely that we will see African countries revive their economic fortunes and take their long-awaited seat at the table of nations that have been able to steer their fate towards sustained prosperity and abundance. As we realise the ambition of Africa’s youth to take the reins and build “the Africa we want”, entrepreneurship is often touted as among the solutions to the very real issue of youth unemployment. It is evident that states and the formal large and medium private sectors will not by themselves be capable of creating the numbers jobs required to absorb the rapidly growing young workers entering the job markets.

Anyone who has been bold enough to take the entrepreneurial journey will testify that the chances of any business succeeding rely heavily on an ecosystem that provides a favourable broader environment, access to the tools, resources and support that take a budding enterprises’s unique needs into consideration. More mature entrepreneurs sometimes have the advantage of time and experience as they further their goals and objectives. Young entrepreneurs face critical gaps in the opportunities presented to them. The more support they have access to, the greater their contribution could be to the development of their communities and countries and hence to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Africa’s Vision 2063.

Information, mentorship, funding and networking are often identified by entrepreneurs as the key pillars of success when building a business that can contribute to a community’s sustainable development. In a recent study, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Service Centre for Africa (RSCA) took a closer look at critical gaps in the four pillars and came to some interesting conclusions:

Information: Most youth entrepreneurship-focused initiatives aim to provide information and advisory services of some kind. Virtual platforms provide youth-entrepreneurship-specific information. However, the findings of the UNDP study suggest that generating original content is a highly resource – intensive task as information tends to be outdated after a short periods of time. Furthermore, the study indicates that what the market needs is leveraging of existing information that help entrepreneurs manoeuvre and find what is relevant to them rather than to generate new content. This is because many of the information needs of entrepreneurs are already available online in one form or the other.

Mentorship: Virtual mentoring services do have limitations, if not combined with physical face to face interactions, as entrepreneurs are not open to share detailed information without being able to trust the mentor. This relationship is usually established over time or through structured mentoring, which is more than a “once-off” event. However, while a number of initiatives provide this kind of virtual support, it is not the most strategic entry point for an online portal because of the challenges in implementation.

Finance: Providing access to finance is also a “physical activity” requiring face-to-face interaction. Financial transactions are rarely successfully made on a virtual platform. Those initiatives that have online support provide match-making support with potential capital providers rather than actually providing capital through their online platforms.

Networking: Networking opportunities for youth entrepreneurs are an important gap in the ecosystem. Many business networks focus on more mature entrepreneurs. A few fellowships exist, which build an alumni network that also has a virtual presence. However, few initiatives aim to strengthen community building among young entrepreneurs. Existing online communities leverage social media and existing platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook. Maintaining a separate networking page is difficult to manage from a resource perspective, as it is resource intensive to curate discussions.

Taking all these insight into consideration, UNDP, in partnership with Accenture, has set out to facilitate the implementation of a pan-African entrepreneurship portal-platform, called YAS! Youth for Africa and SDGs. YAS! serves as an ecosystem catalyst, which supports the development and growth of youth entrepreneurship in Africa by creating a marketplace for ecosystem players, namely investors, large corporates and governments. The portal-platform aims to connect entrepreneurs to the resources they need to develop and grow their idea or business. Users on the platform can interact on the provided values of learning, ecosystem map, challenges and opportunities.

From a learning perspective, entrepreneurs often need key information on the processes and procedures required to become an enterprise. The YAS! portal-platform also provides an ecosystem map that enables the relevant stakeholders across the board – from corporates to entrepreneurs – to locate the different entrepreneurial ecosystem service providers. In addition, leveraging the competitive spirit inherent in entrepreneurs, the portal-platform offers challenges to award financing for youth to develop or scale and implement their innovations to achieve the SDGs Finally, entrepreneurs using the portal-platform find opportunities to learn more about funding and networking relevant for the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

If entrepreneurship is to support Africa’s youth to counter poverty and unemployment, the tools created to assist them must be innovative and speak to their most pressing needs, taking into consideration the resources already available, identifying gaps and creating flexible and effective solutions. The interventions must be fit for purpose. Most importantly, Africa needs an all-hands-on-deck approach to ensure the continent’s youth, curious about the future and bursting with ideas, are given a chance to lead us into the prosperous future we all strive for.

The post Enabling youth entrepreneurship in Africa: addressing critical gaps appeared first on Disrupt Africa.

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The IFC has selected 100 companies to take part in its Next Startups programme, which will provide up-and-coming small businesses with funding and advice.

Disrupt Africa reported in October on the launch of the initiative, which is being run by the IFC in cooperation with Egypt’s Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation.

Designed to spur innovation and job creation across the African continent, the programme connects startups with potential investors, financial institutions, business leaders, and policymakers.

It is designed to support the continent’s budding startup culture and create opportunities for entrepreneurs, who often struggle to secure growth capital and have few places to turn for guidance.

Selected startups include Vezeeta, Avidbeam and Next Protein, with all 100 startups to attend the Africa 2018 Forum in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, which begins today.

“Africa is brimming with entrepreneurs whose drive and creativity have the potential to transform the industries in which they work,” said Philippe Le Houérou, the IFC’s chief executive officer.  “With the right support, African startups can help create the high-quality jobs that are so urgently needed while reducing poverty and finding solutions to some of the continent’s most urgent challenges.”

More than 500 business from 35 African countries applied to be part of the program. The companies selected represent those with the greatest potential to achieve a positive impact on their communities. They come from across the African continent, and operate in a range of sectors, including education, health care, logistics, and software.

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Kenyan startup SwiftAide is allowing consumers to find immediate help with everyday tasks, including cleaning, moving, deliveries and handyman work, via its mobile marketplace.

“It’s like an Uber for these and many more services,” co-founder George Karimi told Disrupt Africa.

Karimi launched SwiftAide alongside his wife Winnie Njeri in the middle of 2017, after struggling to get hold of their cleaning lady. The startup’s platform is a two-sided marketplace that connects customers with “aides”, a network of pre-approved and background-checked individuals with the time and skills needed to complete listed tasks.

“It allows people to outsource small jobs and tasks to others in their locality,” Karimi said.

SwiftAide has several categories of aides, including messengers, carpenters, deliveries, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, and nannies.

“We are basically tapping into the opportunities that exist in the informal sector, bearing in mind it controls like 70 per cent of the job market in Kenya,” said Karimi.

“Plus, people are demanding the freedom of flexible work environments. SwiftAide seeks to become a lifeline for the unemployed workforce. It wants to create an on-tap workforce without sacrificing the stability and benefits of traditional employment. The modern economy is evolving beyond the constraints of traditional work models. SwiftAide gives you a level of autonomy that was once considered too good to be true. Instead of working nine-to-five for a single employer, you can leverage the advantages of the gig economy to make earning money more relaxed and enjoyable.”

The startup – which receives a commission on every completed job, is self-funded and not looking to raise any capital until it has improved its app’s user experience, but has already seen decent uptake. It currently has around 300 listed aides and 500 clients, with around 100 successful transactions having been made through the app.

“Uptake has been quite good as we are getting people signing up from as far as Wajir and Bungoma. Kenyans are quite fast in embracing technology and seizing opportunities,” said Karimi.

“We are in most major towns in the country, but Nairobi tops in users and bookings. We are planning to be fully entrenched in most major towns in the country in the next one year and expanding to the East African market in the next five years. We are planning to expand to Rwanda after we stabilise our operations in Kenya.”

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