TCS - The TechCentral Show

Jan-Jan Bezuidenhout, CEO of MetroFibre Networx, believes fibre network operators (FNOs) in South Africa will soon find a way to deliver fibre broadband profitably into underserviced areas.

Speaking on the TechCentral Show (TCS), Bezuidenhout – who replaced former Absa boss Steve Booysen as CEO of MetroFibre in mid-2022 – said he is confident a solution to the challenge of delivering fibre affordably into these areas will be forthcoming.

MetroFibre and other FNOs are actively testing models for deploying fibre broadband into townships and even into informal settlements.

In this episode of TCS, Bezuidenhout speaks about:

* The state of the fibre broadband market in South Africa;

* The history of MetroFibre, including its investment rounds;

* Consolidation in the fibre infrastructure industry – and the role MetroFibre might play in that consolidation; and

* MetroFibre’s recent aggressive price cuts and line speed increases – why the company did it, and what it hopes to achieve.

Don’t miss the discussion!

Clive Butkow is one of South Africa’s leading experts on venture capital investment in technology start-ups.

The founder and CEO of Kalon Venture Partners joins Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show (TCS) to chat about why the VC investment business has changed radically, especially since the world, led by the US Federal Reserve, started hiking interest rates last year to tame inflation.

Monetary tightening has meant the end of “easy money” and the need by start-ups to focus not on where their next funding round is coming from – it might not even happen in this environment, Butkow says – to managing cash flows and ensuring financial sustainability.

He provides advice to entrepreneurs as to what they should be doing differently to survive the current economic headwinds. For those wanting to start their own ventures, but who haven’t yet done so, he provides insight into the key issues they should be considering before setting out. Also, what are the biggest mistakes start-ups make? Butkow unpacks the key ones in this discussion.

Butkow, a former chief operating officer of Accenture South Africa, quit his day job 10 years ago to found Kalon Venture Partners, which has made several highly successful investments in South African tech start-ups over the years. Kalon’s new fund is now looking at investments elsewhere on the continent, too, seeking to take advantage of growth in the start-up ecosystems in countries such as Kenya and Nigeria.

In this episode of TCS, Butkow talks about the South African Revenue Service’s Section 12J incentive scheme, which drove investments in a large number of start-ups but which has now come to an end. He reflects on the impact that Section 12J had, and what else Sars – and government – could be doing to stimulate start-ups and small businesses.

Don’t miss a fascinating interview!

When Dutch colleagues and business partners Lars Veul and Derk Hoekert came to South Africa on assignment with e-commerce marketplace Groupon in 2012, they soon realised there was a problem: up to 30% of local online orders were not getting delivered.

This was due to various reasons, including consumers not being at home at time of delivery, office premises being difficult for couriers to access and difficulties associated with couriers making deliveries in areas without proper addresses, including in townships.

So, the entrepreneurially minded pair quit their jobs at Groupon and started Pargo in 2015 in an effort to solve the last-mile logistics headaches facing e-commerce businesses in South Africa.

“We spent two years trying to figure out the real problems,” Veul says in this episode of the TechCentral Show (TCS).

The result was a sharp focus on the click-and-collect model and establishing partnerships with thousands of retail stores, allowing consumers to send and receive orders — and return items — over the counter, with a human being providing assistance.

Pargo, which doesn’t operate its own fleet of vehicles – preferring to partner instead with courier companies – now has plans to expand into new markets. In this TCS interview, Veul unpacks what comes next for Pargo.

He also chats about whether the South African Post Office could ever reinvent itself as an e-commerce player, or whether the state-owned postal service is a lost cause.

Don’t miss the discussion!

MTN South Africa hosted a media event in Soweto on Thursday to demonstrate to journalists the severe impact that criminal vandalism is having on its base stations.

In this interview, conducted at the site of an MTN base station in Mofolo South in Soweto, the company's chief technology and information officer, Michele Gamberini, tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the attacks taking place on its high sites and how it's fighting back.

MTN disclosed that it will spend at least R1.5-billion this year at it moves to secure its network against both severe load shedding and vandalism.

Gamberini said MTN will use the R1.5-billion allocated to building resilience in its network - protecting its infrastructure from vandals and deploying thousands of additional batteries to ensure its sites remain operational during extended power outages.

Gamberini said that in the past year there have been more than 400 unique attacks on its tower infrastructure in the Eastern Cape alone. Some sites have been hit as many as 15 times, he said.

In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Gamberini unpacks the impact of the vandalism and power cuts on its ability to service its clients. He also talks about how the company is working with law enforcement in an effort to address the problem, which is affecting all industry players.

The PC industry has been through a boom-and-bust cycle in the past few years, with demand first spiking higher due to Covid and work-from-home measures, only to fall back as people returned to the office.

Despite this, there’s plenty happening in the PC space, including interesting experimentation with new form factors, including dual-screen laptops.

Lenovo, the world’s biggest PC maker, recently took the lid off its latest computing devices at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The company’s head of the Southern African region, Yugen Naidoo, joins the TechCentral Show (TCS) to talk about these new products, but also to unpack the state of the industry.

In this episode of TCS, Naidoo chats about:

• The impact of Covid on the industry, and why demand remains strong in the corporate segment, even as consumers take strain;

• The importance of innovation, even in a mature market;

• New form factors for PCs, and what’s coming next;

• Lenovo’s smartphone offerings, and whether we could see the company’s Motorola phones reintroduced into the South African market; and

• The launch of Lenovo’s ThinkPhone.

Don’t miss the discussion.

Robert Brine, director of Cyber & Intelligence Solutions at Mastercard in Southern Africa, joins the TechCentral Show (TCS) to talk about security in the global payments industry.

Brine tells TechCentral’s Duncan McLeod about the security challenges in the fintech and financial services space, and what consumers and businesses need to know to protect themselves.

In this episode of TCS, Brine unpacks what exactly it is that companies like Mastercard do before detailing the work that Mastercard is doing to secure its platforms from attackers.

He also chats about the impact on consumer behaviour of the Covid-19 pandemic, and what consumers could be doing to better secure themselves when shopping online.

Brine touches on the history of payments technology from the early days of the credit card to modern tap-to-pay solutions.

Lastly, he unpacks what Mastercard is doing in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, and looks at whether a blockchain-based approach to global settlements makes sense.

TechCentral on Tuesday broke the news about Toco, a new payments platform and associated digital currency, toco, backed by the founder of Vumatel.

Now Toco CEO Paul Rowett joins the TechCentral Show (TCS) to chat about the project, which aims to fight climate change by “fixing the current economic model so it places a value on the environment”.

Read all the details about the launch of Toco and its digital currency on TechCentral, but in short, each unit of toco in circulation is represented by a carbon mitigation asset which is held and owned centrally by a Swiss-regulated entity called The Carbon Reserve.

The Carbon Reserve is an independent non-profit foundation responsible for toco issuance, purchases and custody of the carbon assets. It is mandated to maintain the convertibility of tocos to carbon assets and to grow the toco supply and expand the voluntary carbon market.

Founded by Rowett with Vumatel co-founders Niel Schoeman and Johan “Joe” Pretorius, Toco has also drawn early-stage investment from venture capitalist and former FNB CEO Michael Jordaan.

In this episode of TCS, Rowett unpacks the ideas behind Toco, how he partnered with Schoeman and Pretorius to launch the venture, and why they chose Stellenbosch to pilot the project.

The founders want to use the platform and currency to help save the planet. Rowett sets out in this TCS interview how exactly the company intends to do that. Don’t miss the discussion!

Naked Insurance, the South African digital insurance start-up, announced earlier on Wednesday that it has secured US$17-million (R306-million at the time of writing) in a series-B funding round.

Alex Thomson, Naked’s CEO and a co-founder of the company, joins Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show (TCS) to unpack the investment, which includes funding from the International Finance Corporation and German development finance house DEG.

Described by Naked as “one of the largest-ever African insurtech funding rounds”, Thomson reveals in this episode of TCS what the company plans to use the money to do.

He also discusses why the insurance industry was ripe for disruption and how Naked uses artificial intelligence tools to reduce dramatically the need for call centre agents and to drive up efficiencies in the applications and claims processes.

Don’t miss the discussion!

Convergence Partners CEO Brandon Doyle joins Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show (TCS) to unpack the recently announced closing, at $296-million (R5.3-billion), of the private equity company’s new Digital Infrastructure Fund.

Convergence Partners, which is chaired by well-known South African technology investor and entrepreneur Andile Ngcaba, unpacks what the fund – which surpassed its initial targeted fundraising amount by 18% -- intends to use the money for.

The new fund is Convergence Partners’ largest to date and brings total funds under management to about $600-million.

In this episode of TCS, Doyle chats about Convergence Partners’ investment philosophy and unpacks some of the bigger investments made by the company since its founding in 2006.

He also provides details about the sort of investments the company is hoping to make through its new fund and why.

Lastly, Doyle talks about the state of venture capital and private equity funding in Africa, especially in an environment of high inflation and rapidly rising interest rates, and what that means for technology investment on the continent.

Don’t miss a fascinating discussion!

Tim Humphreys-Davies, CEO of Alviva Holdings-owned technology distributor Pinnacle, believes the worst of the supply-chain challenges that afflicted the global and local tech industries in recent years is largely over.

Speaking on the TechCentral Show (TCS), Humphreys-Davies explains that although there are still some challenges in the networking space, the chip shortages that affected the PC industry have been resolved.

He unpacks how Pinnacle, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, weathered the storm, and how the current slump in PC sales is affecting the industry.

In this episode of TCS, Humphreys-Davies also chats about:

• The imminent delisting of Alviva Holdings and what that means for Pinnacle;

• Consolidation in the distribution market, including Alviva’s recent acquisition of Tarsus Technology Group, and what it means for the local industry;

• How Pinnacle and sister companies Axiz and Tarsus compete (and sometimes cooperate) with each other, and why it’s unlikely that the companies will be merged; and

• The big technology trends of 2023, including the emergence of generative artificial intelligence.

Don’t miss the discussion!