Hi there,

Expensive imports? US president Trump has slapped the entire world with trade tariffs, including 10% on all the penguins and seals on some uninhabited islands. Closer to home, South Africa is one of Trump’s “worst offenders” with a 30% tariff. The highest tariff in the world, though, goes to none other than poor Lesotho, whom Trump says “no one’s ever heard of” — shame.

Before the global trade war, though, it’s time for another Fast-Five Friday — 5 must-know things in SA startup, in 5 minutes. Let’s go…

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1. EARLY DAYS

Slowing the municipality’s roll

Owning property in South Africa is a pretty costly exercise…

SA ranks 3rd in the world for highest property taxes at 23.12%, pipped only by Singapore in 1st place (35.58%), and Belgium slightly higher than us at 24%.

Most people don’t know if their property valuation is accurate, and the problem is that if it’s too high, you pay unnecessary taxes. But even if you know it’s been valued too high, the process to object to this is a nightmare.

But we stumbled upon a South African startup that was “gatvol” of this and, low and behold, launched Gatvol AI, SA’s first AI-powered Municipal rates objector.

Combining technology, legal expertise and property knowledge, the platform uses AI to extract your valuation details directly from the municipal valuations roll, incorporate property data and comparable sales, to get a more precise valuation.

Gatvol will then compile an objection and submit it to the municipality on your behalf, hopefully scoring you reduced tariffs on your home.

2. MAKING ITS MARK…

Would you get tatt’ed by a robot?

Tattoo artists have a pretty finite earning potential: How many hours they can tattoo per day?

Sure, they could open up their own shop with extra booths employing other artists and such… but by and large, it is what it is.

Blackdot, a TattTech startup, has launched a machine that will give tattoo artists scale by letting them upload their designs to a marketplace and receive revenue from it each time someone gets tattooed by one of these machines, even if they’re on the other side of the world…

And it’s great for people getting tatts too, with reported pain levels as low as 2 out of 10, vs between 5 and 8 of conventional tattoo guns. And because Blackdot’s machine uses tiny black dots as fine as human hair, it can create very accurate, highly detailed tattoos.

3. FROM THE OPEN COLLAB FOUNDER NETWORK

Opening up the SA grid for business

With SA currently allowing independent companies to produce up to 100 MW of electricity, and plans are to remove the threshold altogether in the future, electricity generators (IPPS) can now buy and sell energy through the transmission grid (subject to Eskom and municipal agreement).

But it’s not straightforward: Eskom still supplies the power, you just prove you generated the same into the grid and it gets credited. Plus there are multiple stakeholders involved in the transaction, archaic metering systems & ops, and a matching process required between supply and usage.

To help simplify and streamline things, local EnerTech startup Open Access Energy is building a suite of products to: 

• Facilitate the transactions between generators, consumers, Eskom and municipalities

• IPP proposal creation (normally a 3–5 process) now in just 5 minutes

• A (free) solution for municipalities and utilities to access smart meters, collect and interpret the data, apply tariffs, and bill customers all in one place.

A vital service when SA’s energy market gets more opened up by 2026/2027.

Do you want to build with lekker startup builders like Timo C. King, head of product at Open Access Energy? Come on over, we build together at The Open Collab…

4. GET AI BUILT INTO YOUR FINANCE OPERATIONS

Simplify How You Run Your Business

Running a small business means juggling a million things. But what if you could take care of invoicing, quotes and accounting questions — without ever logging in?

That’s the power of Just Ask Xero (JAX) — your new AI business sidekick by our friends over at Xero.

It’s still in beta, but JAX is being developed to help you handle everyday tasks with a simple message, wherever you are: email, SMS or WhatsApp, JAX meets you where you work — and gets it done.

With JAX, you can:

✅ Create and send invoices while you’re still on the job.
✅ Get real-time answers on quotes, payments and what you’re owed.
✅ Ask support questions and get instant help — no digging needed.

No more end-of-day admin. No more second-guessing.

Smarter workflows start with JAX. 

Plus: Did you know that if you use our exclusive Open Letter Xero partnership, you get Xero 90% off for 6 months?

No jokes.

5. PITY THE (APRIL) FOOL

The glorious day the OG social network was back

Sadly, Mxit isn’t back to stay — our exclusive breaking news on Tuesday was an April Fool’s joke in collaboration with our friends Dan Southwood-Wells and Herman Maritz from EskomSePush…

They restyled ESP to look like Mxit, complete with retro fonts and colours, bringing a wave of nostalgia to thousands of South Africans. We created the noise with our PR piece.

The prank went viral, racking up nearly 10k comments and reactions on Mxit (ag, we mean ESP), 20k+ site visitors, 400+ new Open Letter subscribers, and even landing on a Best April Fools’ 2025 list. 

More than just a joke, this was a tribute to a true South African tech icon. Mxit wasn’t just a chat app… it was a launchpad for friendships, moonbases, and a generation of tech entrepreneurs. 

Here’s to the OG social media app built right here in SA – and a big thanks to Dan, Herman and the ESP team for making it happen! 

Now hit reply to this email and tell us: what was your favourite Mxit memory?

IN SHORT

Cool tech stories to drop at the braai this weekend…

🦻Listen up. SA-born hearing tech, hearX, has merged with Eargo to form LXE Hearing, combining Eargo’s cutting-edge design, emphasis on clinical quality and customer-first approach with hearX’s suite of Bose-powered products and its award-winning mobile app. Nice one.

🤖 Three free pics. ChatGPT’s new image generator has been so popular that OpenAI has rolled it out to its free tier users. This has, however, been limited to 3 image creations per day. At least for now.

☔️ Whatever the weather. Google has added its AI Nowcasting weather tool to its search to provide “highly localised and immediate weather updates” using satellite imagery and AI… Cool, so opposed to just looking out the window?

🌍 African STEM boost. Amazon has just launched its first African Think Big Space in Cape Town to train 100 educators to reach 10’000 learners across 6 provinces to bridge the gaps in STEM education. Let’s GO!

🏆 Last Chance to Enter. Innovation City’s Startup of the Year competition’s entries close today at 17:00! Innovation City membership, 100k+ in UX design and public recognition, this is a great opportunity to showcase your startup among the best there is. Don’t miss your chance at winning this prestigious award, enter here.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with super streamlined business registration and compliance via Govchain, all your tech recruitment sorted by OfferZen and loads more vital startup tools & services.

DON’T MISS THIS

Coming Up in SA’s Most Vibrant Tech Founder Network

Next up in our members-only founder network — The Open Collab.

4 April 12:00 — An Open Collab Network Exclusive Masterclass: Marketing for scaling your startup with Kurt Schröder from Double Shift — join The Open Collab to attend.

11 April 12:000 — Chat Roulette: Meet other SA founders and builders when we all login for an online check-in and chat to get to network — join The Open Collab to attend.

25 April 12:00 — The Path to Scale Masterclass: Discover the hidden pitfalls and proven growth tools with Jason Goldberg, Art of Scale author and co-founder of Edge Growth.

PLUS: When you join The Open Collab, you get access to expert sessions, 100+ SA founders to network with and weekly online and offline network engagements.

JOBS IN TECH

“Yeah, I got skills. What you gon’ do about it?”

🪴 Product Owner @ Flexhire

👷‍♀️ Software Engineering Team Lead @ Bash

🎨 Product Designer @ Sand Dollar Design

😎 Talent Partner (Tech) @ MoonPay

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

GAME TIME

Find zen with today’s ZA startup haiku

Code, design, create,

Learning paths to shape careers,

Future skills today.

WHAT YOU SAID

Get social…

On Tuesday, we asked about the most important workplace skill, and social’s the way…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤝 Social skills (65%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💀 Meme/GIF/Viral vid skills (5%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔥 Braai skils, of course (16%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎛️ Nah, it's your DJ skills (3%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💬 Actually, I discovered the perfect work skill… (11%)

Your 2 cents…

Ah, so a little bit of self-sacrifice, eh Vuyo. Spoken like a true founder. #startuplife 🛼

Right you are, Mpho, and we all sometimes wish we had a little more of it. 🤓

In a way that’s quite true, Bosvalu. How else you gonna attract a crowd? 🔊

He he, and we guess the best politicians win? 🎩