Long drive? Car manufacturers have been building so many luxury features into cars that more drivers are getting sleepy behind the wheel. The solution? Dash cam-style AI’s to detect and wake up drowsy drivers.

Happy Fast-Five-Friday! 5 startups, local, all doing big things. Let’s go…

Together with

1. EARLY DAYS

Letting the Cat Out of the Bag…

The average visitor spent just over 2.5 days in Cape Town between January and June this year. And this festive season, expect Cape Town to be heaving with 27 airlines flying folks to and from 31 global destinations, not to mention the nearly 200k passengers and crew pulling into Western Cape ports.

With most accommodation check-outs happening mid-morning, visitors may have some time on their hands before leaving, so a quick trip to Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch, Robben Island etc. could be on the cards. But nobody wants to schlep their luggage around (least on a ferry). 

That’s why we think local luggage and logistics company Bag Drop is on to a cool idea. Simply book a time for your luggage to be collected, Bag Drop securely stores your luggage and then drops it off whenever you need it (more than likely at the airport), all the while letting you track your bag, and see the live driver location.

2. A WORLD LEADER

12 Years till Launch

Over 12 years ago, South African Guy van der Walt and a team from UCT set out to create the world’s most medically accurate and ethically developed 3D anatomy models.

The team at Atomedge dedicated over a decade to this project due to the immense complexity of precisely mapping every component of the human body — 206 bones, 100,000 km of arteries, and millions of nerves. Creating a model of this calibre required an extraordinary amount of time, effort, and resources — talk about a competitive edge!

This model captures every detail of the human body, from muscles and nerves to bones and arteries. And recently they started selling it to academic institutions, researchers, and organizations worldwide, changing the way anatomy studies and medical education is performed.

They recently won the Xero South Africa Beautiful Business Award, and the money is going to go a long way in getting the word out.

3. WATCH THIS SPACE

Leading the Charge!

The local EV scene is hotting up. Strangely, it has nothing (or very little) to do with that oke from Pretoria who also wants to send humans to Mars. This year alone we’ve seen the launch of SA’s first electric minibus taxi, a couple of international brands dropping their electric trucks on local shores, not to mention SA’s first solar EV charging station in the North West province…   

We recently caught up with Zimi CEO Michael Maas to hear about what’s next for the Zimi Team. And it’s also been a bumper year for the turnkey EV charging platform, from closing their pre-seed funding round with Anza Capital, their Startup of the Year nomination for mobility from Startup Club ZA, not to mention the imminent launch of Zimi Pay to EV users back on the road.

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4. FROM THE OPEN COLLAB COMMUNITY

Data – Awareness – Action

Sustainability is tough, especially for large, multi-location companies with thousands of employees and countless data sources. But by centralising that data into an easy-to-understand format, you can drive awareness, cut costs, and benefit both the planet and your bottom line.

HYDRA, a software solution built by The Awareness Company, turns complex data into clear insights to drive sustainability. It collects and organises data from sensors, cameras, and systems, to improve efficiency, predict problems, and boost collaboration (so that everyone in the org understands its data).

Oh ja. The Awareness Company was the Climate/Sustainability Tech winner at last week’s Startup Club ZA’s South African Startup Awards.

PS. Two of the co-founders of The Awareness Company, Priaash & Shazia is part of The Open Collab community. Come join them in SA’s founder community for startup and scale-up founders.

5. ON THE POD

Building Ventures Ground Up

This Global Startup Studio Report claims that startups developed within venture studios tend to outperform those following traditional paths. They have a 30% higher success rate, with 84% securing seed funding. Of these, 72% progress to Series A funding, compared to 42% of traditional startups.

Venture studio startups also reach Series A in about 25.2 months, significantly faster than the 56 months typical for traditional startups. Additionally, they achieve an average internal rate of return of 53%, surpassing the 21.3% average for traditional startups.

That’s likely why the teams at Next176 and ByteOrbit have teamed up to form NextOrbit, a venture studio that combines the best venture-building capabilities from both entities.

We had Nonjabulo Zondi from Next176 and Liz Ras from ByteOrbit on the podcast this week to share the reasoning behind this venture as well as talk about some of the challenges that Venture Studios faces.

IN SHORT

How’s this for a Conversation Starter…

🇿🇦 Really back the Bokke. A consortium of Altvest Capital, RainFin, 27four and EasyEquities put forward a proposal to SA Rugby to create the means for the public to own up to 40% of the Springbok commercial rights. Now that’s an idea we’d throw some money behind even if it’s just for “gees”.

❤️ In the REd. The Good People Data Company has secured a major investment from REdimension Capital, to fuel its fuel growth, innovation, and expansion across Africa, as the continent navigates the challenges of a digital-first world. Lekker to see some deals flowing to close off the year.

🤖 And then there were 5. At AWS re:Invent, Amazon revealed new AI models for automation, content creation, and multimedia tasks, alongside plans for a massive AI compute cluster. And the real big news is that these models are up to 75% cheaper than competitors. As these costs come down, highly doubt we will see AI categories at startup competitions as all startups will eventually incorporate it.

🚙 Uber Bakkie. Uber announced that South Africans can now start requesting “Bakkies” for loads up to 1 ton. Now you can go crazy in your neighbourhood WhatsApp buy and sell group.

🏦 Neo Bank Returns. Those who participated in European bank Revolut’s crowdfunding round in 2016 at $2.14 a share can now sell their shares at a whopping $865.42 per share in a secondary offering leading up to their upcoming IPO. Nothing like a sweet 400x return in 8 years.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with your own CTO for remarkable tech builds with Octoco, all your accounting sorted with Xero and 12 more vital startup tools & services.

END-YEAR POWER

The Right Way to End Off 2024

(and supercharge your 2025 at the same time…)

Year-end is always a little bitter-sweet for startups and founders — you did a lot in 2024, but there’s so much more still to be done… so you fall into the “can’t switch off” trap and one of two things happen:

• You either refuse to admit you’re burned out and try power through the holidays, never resting and potentially crippling your business for 2025.

• Or January 2025 conversations keep creeping into your year-end meetings and work, muddying your end-of-year and leaving everyone frazzled.

The problem with those is both will stop you from hitting the ground running in Jan.

The solution: Business strategy consultants Metavolve have developed a tailormade Year-End Reflection toolkit, and you and your team can log in on 11 December at 12:00 for a free 2-hour workshop on how to end this year off right.

The aim is to teach you the most business-savvy and psychologically advanced way to close off 2024 so that you’re on fire again in 2025.

It’s free — register for the LinkedIn Live event here.

JOBS IN TECH

A Change is as Good as a Holiday…

🧱 Product Owner @ Deel

👨‍💻 Senior Full Stack Engineer @ MoonPay

🎨 Creative Leader @ Mr Price

🤳 FinTech Operations Manager @ SnapScan

Hiring? Get in touch, and we will feature it here.

LET’S PLAY A LITTLE GAME

Riddle Me this, Batman…

I fix your ride without the stress,

A motor guru in your pocket, no less.

No need for calls, or waiting in line,

I send a mechanic right on time.

Who am I?