14 September
South Africa’s web startups to watch
I’ve had an idea for this kind of list for quite some time now, but I guess I’ve been waiting until we have clear and well-defined players rather than something we insiders consider successful but is really unknown to the rest of the local web space.
I’ve tried to diversify the list with startups doing things in different markets, and while this is a list of the most promising startups they are by no means the best but are looking toward a bright future. If I missed out on any please share your insight in the comments area. In no particular order:
Amatomu is an aggregator of South African blogs with a ranking system based on page views and inbound links. The aggregator also features various widgets to integrate Amatomu functionality into your blog.
Founded by Vincent Maher and Matthew Buckland from M&G
Modelbase is an online portfolio hosting website for South African models and photographers. Sort of an online modeling agency to view and contact South Africa’s best photography and modeling talent.
Founded by Freestyle Labs
Synthasite is an browser based AJAX website construction tool that allows you to assemble your website from any PC. The application features many widgets and templates to choose from enabling any novice web designer to create professional web properties.
Founded by Vinny Lingham from Incubeta
Blueworld is an social network which allows you to create your own profile and express yourself through blogs, videos and photos which aggregates on your profile and in various sub areas of the network. Sort of South Africa’s Myspace, Blueworld also features clubbing photos from around South Africa including foreign destinations such as London and Germany.
Founded by Brent Brooks, Bradley Voges and Charl Norman
Afrigator is the second aggregator on this list but has a unique hook focusing on blogs in the Africa internet name space. Afrigator is Africa’s first social media aggregator with content channels from Nigeria to Uganda.
Founded by Mike Stopforth, Justin Hartman, Stiaan Pretorius and Mark Forrester (Some jumped on board later in the project’s live)
Zoopy is one of the first photo and video sharing networks in South Africa featuring numerous channels from politics to humor.
Founded by Jason Elk and co
One of the first social media startups to come out of South Africa, Muti is a social bookmarking site inspired by reddit and Digg but dedicated to content of interest to Africans or those interested in Africa.
Founded/headed up by Neville Newey and Dave Duarte
The Vottle project allows you to network online, to buy and sell goods, and it enables you seek out other like-minded people. Vottle can be described as an online classifieds or a community service. With many ad listings in numerous categories and a useful sms service Vottle has become one of the leading online classifieds destinations in SA.
Founded by Greg de Chasteauneuf, Ronnie Apteker, Andrew Murray, Colin Peterson, Justin Spratt, Richard van Katwijk and Gus MacRobert
iBlog is a blogging community where anyone can register and create their own blog. Showcasing thousands of bloggers, iBlog is the biggest independent blogging community in the dot coza name space.
Founded by Mark Garbers
AmaGama, another project out of the M&G stable, is a blogging community where anyone can register and create their own WordPress blog and post podcasts.
Founded by Vincent Maher and Matthew Buckland
Zoopedup is an automotive social network that allows you to create an online garage for your car featuring blogging, video and picture sharing, discussion forums, ride battles and event galleries from around the globe.
Founded by Charl Norman
My Video is the second video sharing platform in this list and claims to also be the first of its kind in South Africa. Featuring all the characteristics of a video sharing site groups, channels and off course videos.
Founded/Run by Rowan Polovin, Tristan Owen and Michael Salzwedel
MyGenius allows users to promote themselves, build relationships and possibly collaborate with others. The focus of MyGenius is to give individuals a space to showcase their skills, brand themselves and share their ideas.
Founded by John Raath and Doug Timberlake
Freelancentral is a hub for talented freelancers to pitch for projects posted by employers.
Founded by Jo Duxbury
iJol allows you to scan through a summary of all kinds of events happening in your area, and even to see which of your buddies are planning on attending. The site also allows you to plan and post events while creating a profile (myJol) of events you will/have attended.
Other startups hovering around:
Digspot, Vrinne, Student Village, LitNet, SA Reunited, MK89 (worth featuring but bought off the shelf), My Bookmark, Mobimii, TWAC, Wibble, Springleap
References:
Uno de Waal, David Duarte, TechCrunch, IOL Technology
List by Charl Norman
- WordPress 2.1 released
- Sneak Preview: Facebook layout chages
- USB Pole dancer
- Technorati’s fresh new look
- Google acquires Feedburner for $100 mil
- Yahoo in talks to buy Bebo for $1 Billion
- Microsoft’s new project code named Milan
- Halo III video
- Microsoft reopens talks with Yahoo!
- Chat on MSN while you XBOX!
September 14th, 2007 at 1:17 am
Great post Charl and thanks for reference.
It would be interesting to compare which networks are actually built up from scratch and which use packages off the rack.
Sites like Amagama, iBlog (WordPress MU) Muti, My Bookmark (pligg) and I don’t know who else (I’m suggesting Myvideo and Zoopy, but I’m unsure) use open source packages which suggest that they weren’t built up from scratch and therefore might be considered less innovative from a technical perspective, but more innovative from a marketing angle.
I find it interesting that you say “worth featuring but bought off the shelf” for MK89, but not for any of these other OS networks. Where do you see the difference?
Also, you’ve forgotten about the 24.com blogs (shameless punt here). You claim that iblog.co.za is the biggest independant blogging community under the ZA namespace. I assume that you mean the biggest who don’t have a corporate news agency backing them (ala Amagama as well).
Great post Charl! I’ll be linking and referring back.
September 14th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Zoopedup for the win! I totally love it! Something very classy coming out of SA. Freelancentral has also got a crisp look and feel to it. Loving the quality that is emerging. As for the “bought of the shelf”… i like a site with personality so many of these startups seem scripty… but then again… better have something than nothing… Quality post BB.
September 14th, 2007 at 2:30 am
Hey Charl,
Excellent post. With regards to Muti – I think that this site (and news-filters in general) have the most tremendous potential going forward – how else do we sort the grain from the chaff if not through a community of peers (or else really good editors). I can tell you that we have a very interesting plan for the next evolution of the site. Watch that space:)
September 14th, 2007 at 3:45 am
Don’t forget http://www.iJol.co.za, SA’s events community!
Soon I would like to be adding to that list.
September 14th, 2007 at 4:09 am
@Uno your right, but my personal opinion is that a big corporate such as Mnet with their money backing them could’ve developed their own platform instead of buying it off the shelf.
@Dave thanks for dropping by, originally I had you as a founder of Muti but edited it as you joined the project later. I will edit the tagline and include your name.. muti is great and leads the pack of social news sites by a long shot
@Capdog – iJol is a great site and slipped my mind.. I will include it right away
*updating post… *
September 14th, 2007 at 4:34 am
Hi Charl
Great post and a super reference for anyone wanting a quick list of the SA Web 2.0 scene.
To answer Uno’s question, it must be said that Zoopy’s code was built by a team of developers. After looking at the scripts out there about a year and a half ago, we decided on the same day to rather build from scratch for scalability, stability and control.
That said, you’re only looking at Zoopy v1. More on the way.
September 14th, 2007 at 4:51 am
[...] is a post I just published over at Bandwidth Blog – Please drop by and share your [...]
September 14th, 2007 at 5:03 am
@Uno
Muti is NOT built from any open source “packages” and is entirely built from scratch in Python.
September 14th, 2007 at 5:21 am
Another shameless punt, I must be honest. But I’m hoping all sorts of good things for http://sablogger.co.za which is a digg-style site for South African related blogs & news…
September 14th, 2007 at 5:33 am
It’s quite funny, at school we were involved with a project called iJol as well.
It was supposed to be a content portal for highschool kids. Now I find myself doing something similar again!
September 14th, 2007 at 5:49 am
SAblogger still uses the default pligg theme its not worth mentioning, its not even worth my bandwidth
September 14th, 2007 at 7:39 am
Great Post Man…
Keep it up.
September 14th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Great post Charl, well researched and informative!
Uno, from what I can tell, iblog.co.za is the biggest blogging site in SA, backed by a major news agency or not. Obviously I stand to be corrected if this isn’t the case, but I think that our 6900 bloggers is the biggest ‘herd’ of bloggers in the ZA space.
And you’re completely correct, most of our functionality is provided by WordPress… there is a fair bit of customisation that has been done, but we don’t think that we can do much better than the WordPress team, so are happy to use most of their optimisations!
Really exciting to see how the ZA social space is hotting up, good work everyone!
September 14th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
[...] Here are some more African web start-ups [...]
September 15th, 2007 at 1:31 am
Thanks for the good feedback guys if you like the post or find it useful please link to it! (;
@Neville – very impressive that muti is custom built
September 15th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Thank you very much Charl. One of the motivations for doing it was purely to scratch a programmers itch
(Yes, geeks are an odd bunch)
September 15th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
ok, not to shamelessly plug
but I think you’re missing a few lesser spotted startups (ok maybe not entirely startup – most have ironed out the kinks already and have a business model and revenue 
)
http://www.blogkits.com = South african born internationally competitive blogger-only ad network that focuses on paying bloggers for honest reviews on products, sites and services.
Open to international bloggers. Think pay-per-post but we want to know what you honestly really do think!
Also provides real-time blog ads that are optimized based on content for which bloggers paid on an sale, lead or acquisition basis – think google adsense but with bigger returns!
http://www.offerforge.com = South African and US based Affiliate ad network running most large market affiliate programs in SA and major brands in the US. Technology and operations all based out of SA. A really well kept secret in South Africa I’m afraid
http://www.forgeinsight.com = globally patented technology that aggregates reporting and solves the complexity for advertisers of what’s called multi-network-affiliate-marketing. Doesn’t sound cool – but it gets the hairs tingling for people in the know in the US and UK. it’s kinda like Google Analytics for the affiliate space……and since million are being spent on R&D here I guess it fits the startup mode LOL!
September 16th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Well, Im glad everyone is taking the list as the definative outline of hot SA startups.. some are even getting bitchy about it on their blogs.
That’s not what I was trying to portay, I listed young up and coming startups recently created.. hence ‘to watch..’
But by all means please add to the list..
September 16th, 2007 at 4:20 am
As usual mon petite pois, you’ve written another great article. Especially enjoyed the modelbase. Shame im not in S.A anymore
MWAHA
September 16th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
You forgot to mention wibble.co.za
September 16th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Here’s another one:
Load The Show
http://www.loadtheshow.com
September 16th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I should add in Wibble, and even M&G’s Thought Leader..
Not to sure about Load the Show
September 17th, 2007 at 7:05 am
Great post, some exciting stuff here.
I’m biased, but I think that my Ideate colleagues’ http://www.yuppiechef.co.za is worthy of honourable mention. No start-up funding, no outside marketing – just hard (and smart) slog. Shane Dryden and Andrew Smith are making e-commerce palatable in a country that’s traditionally found it hard to digest.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Hey Fred, Yuppie chef looks great, love the colour scheme.. very niche store. I will include it into the next list which im working on now.. Its much more detailed with user stats etc
Thanks for dropping by
September 17th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Thought of another one:
http://www.cherrypicka.com/
By Jon Cherry of Cherryflava…
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:38 am
So many websites – feel free to list them at a new one :
http://www.BizMeet.co.za
It’s a social network especially for website owners or affiliates. Add your site(s) to the online directory and post some ads in the classifieds. Communicate. Post blogs punting your websites. Have fun!
October 25th, 2007 at 7:43 am
[...] South Africa’s web startups to watch Yeigo makes it official Yeigo 2.1 launching soon [...]
October 29th, 2007 at 7:45 am
It will be great to take a look at http://www.wonaafrica.com.
The idea is to have a travel youtube for Africa.
Cheers.
November 9th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
[...] for your car featuring blogging, video and picture sharing, discussion forums, r… source: South Africas web startups to watch, Bandwidth Blog – Web 2.0 and Startup [...]
November 13th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
[...] article I wrote a few weeks back on Bandwidthblog about South Africa’s startups to watch was published this past week. I was prevliged enough to get the article published in the [...]
November 14th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
[...] would like to take Charl Norman to task in this regard. I read this Muti’d article from his blog and have an issue with the entire [...]
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:18 am
you forgot http://www.plugd.net
November 28th, 2007 at 4:01 am
[...] South Africa’s web startups to watch [...]
January 14th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
[...] South Africa’s top startups to watch (Was published in print) [...]
January 18th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
what about biz Community site? that is really busy , or is it no longer a start up?
January 19th, 2008 at 12:19 am
I think you will really enjoy this. SA biggest and best competition website!
January 27th, 2008 at 7:32 am
[...] the best but are looking toward a bright future. If I missed out on any please share you source: South Africas web startups to watch, Bandwidth [...]
February 5th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
[...] Before someone (Nic) calls me out on this – Bandwidth Blog posts at the top of Muti. [...]
February 8th, 2008 at 6:17 am
[...] http://www.bandwidthblog.com/2007/09/14/south-africas-web-startups-to-watch/ [...]
February 11th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
An extremely comprehensive list of sites. As I write this I have opened like 10 tabs of sites that I want to check out. Cheers for the list.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
[...] of South Africans looking to their blogs to express themselves. Testament to this is the success of Amatomu.com which is responsible to sorting the SA blogosphere and Afrigator.com which indexed the thousands of [...]
February 21st, 2008 at 11:07 am
[...] Published in Press 21Feb Blueworld has been named on Bandwidth Blog’s 2007 list of web startups to watch. Blueworld is an social network which allows you to create your own profile and express [...]
February 21st, 2008 at 11:43 am
[...] Published in Press 13Nov Blueworld has been named on Bandwidth Blog’s 2007 list of web startups to watch. Blueworld is an social network which allows you to create your own profile and express [...]
March 12th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Wow, So many to mention. Really a good site to look out for is
http://www.virusremoval.co.za Taking the fight back at them.
Really cool.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Take a look at http://www.moggl.com, it’s a South African based social network. Really easy to navigate and lots to do.
March 21st, 2008 at 6:39 pm
[...] generating press around the new Blueworld launch. Sustainable traffic is the biggest issue facing local web startups in my opinion. The press we’ve received so far has mainly been on tech related sites and has [...]
April 5th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
[...] top startups article was published in Intelligence magazine last year. It was quite popular and has been [...]
April 17th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I find bundublog.com a great blog host. They are totally dedicated to Africa. They are new and should be kept an eye on! They use the WordPress platform and have great features.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I am sure that South Africa would be on top of things if we had better bandwidth. Telkom has managed to slow us down. But its nice to see people fighting on! Nice post dude!
June 15th, 2008 at 3:09 am
Hi, where can I find a list of other african startups ? africa in general rather than solely south african
——
xenbet.com
September 4th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
I know this is an old post but I just wanted you to be aware of another great web startup… http://www.capetownalive.co.za. Otherwise the list is really useful, thanks.
Kind regards,
Sandra
September 30th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I recently came across http://www.75.co.za by 2lmn(2lmn.co.za)’s Lebogang Nkoane. Its a brilliant concept and the site’s execution is clean and fresh too..
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Blinkplan (www.blinkplan.com) is a new one by two South Africans. It caters for the media market (especially magazines) and does easy flatplans.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
[...] pioneers of the Web 2.0 movement and on our list of SA startups to watch, they have just roped in a whooping $20 million as funding from Luxembourg-based Reinet Fund S.C.A. [...]
July 5th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Couldn’t agree with Charl more… having a South African based websites shows that we are truely getting there.