The Venture Capital Industry in South Africa is alive and well with over R1 billion invested annually over the past three years. Almost half the value of this annual investment value is categorised as seed or start-up/growth capital. High-tech or tech-enabled businesses find themselves at the forefront of investment demand and high capital return investments.
With its South African Software Guilds located in both Gauteng and the Western Cape and over 90% of all VC investments occurring in these regions, SovTech is strategically positioned to partner with major VC firms, their portfolio companies and start-ups in South Africa.
When working in the early phase seed segment, initial ideation and ‘blueprinting’ is a critical first step. The blueprint phase involves solving the problem and designing the solution through a digital process. Through contextual research, rapid prototyping and an iterative design process, the blueprinting process aims to remove initial ambiguity around the solution, which in turn allows downstream engineering teams to move fast.
A dedicated Agile Engineering team is then hand-selected in order to deliver the working solution outlined by the blueprint. The major objective is to get working software into production and the user’s hands in the shortest possible time frame.The success of this approach can be seen through the successes of many SovTech’s start-up businesses.
One such relationship is that of SovTech and Fincheck. Spanning back to Fincheck’s inception in 2016, SovTech has walked the journey with Founders Mike Bowren (CEO) and Chris Ball from day one. From ideation to the first line of code being written and through to Fincheck’s recent acquisition of FundingHub. This acquisition means that Fincheck is now recognised as SA’s largest financial comparison site.
"SovTech has formed a central role in the structuring of Fincheck’s development team. This has provided the business with several key advantages as it has meant that their product roadmap has remained flexible."
This Agile approach has ensured Fincheck’s ability to remain flexible and responsive to their environment allowing them to outmanoeuvre any competitor advances and ship high-value feature into production on a sprint-by-sprint basis.
Having found a winning formula for building thriving high-tech and tech-enabled start-ups, SovTech is excited to be positioned in the centre of this thriving ecosystem.
