Silicon Overdrive Founders Series

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Event recap10 min read

How Jozi My Jozi Is Rebuilding Joburg, One Block at a Time

Colin Iles · 14 Oct 2026

Bea Swanepoel on how Jozi My Jozi, a team of 24, relit the Nelson Mandela Bridge and is rebuilding Joburg's inner city: clean it, make it safe, light it.

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Event recap12 min read

Why WeBuyCars Refused the ERP and Built Its Own

Colin Iles · 11 Sept 2026

In 2018 WeBuyCars ran on one Google Sheet. Wynand Beukes on why they refused an ERP, built their own software, and now trade cars without humans.

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Article2 min read

AI Buys Cars: Inside WeBuyCars

Colin Iles · 26 Aug 2026

WeBuyCars sells 180,000 cars a year and has let AI agents buy 2,800 of them. Deputy CEO Dr Wynand Beukes on what is running underneath.

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Event recap11 min read

How Capitec Got to 26 Million Clients Without Losing Its Nerve

Colin Iles · 13 Aug 2026

Capitec CEO Graham Lee on the four principles behind 26 million clients, why the word no matters most, and where AI is already changing the bank.

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Event recap8 min read

The Quiet Force Behind African Fintech: Inside the Crossfin Playbook

Colin Iles · 20 Jul 2026

Dean Sparrow and Anton Gaylard on backing founders, surviving the wiGroup crisis, building iKhokha against the banks, and the case for patient capital.

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Video interview

From Paper Loans to AI Banking

Chijioke Dozie · Co-Founder & CEO, Carbon

Chijioke Dozie on Nigeria's $5bn credit gap, Carbon's 7-minute loans, and how AI is reshaping digital banking in Africa. Full recap and video.

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Video interview

AI Meets the African Bush

Willem Kellerman & Dirk Strauss · Co-founders, Veriphy

Chisl co-founder Willem Kellerman on how Veriphy and Project Gaia used AI drones to census South Africa's biggest reserves, backed by AWS H200 GPUs.

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Video interview

Building Where Incumbents Won't

Alan Knott-Craig · CEO, Fibertime

Alan Knott-Craig on how fibertime reached 415,000 township homes on 5-rand-a-day fibre, why wireless fails, and the REIT model funding a 100-billion-rand mission.

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Video interview

Inside the $205M Bet on African Tech

Hans Otterling · Founding Partner, Norrsken22

Hans Otterling backed Spotify and Klarna, then turned south. He tells The Backroom why Norrsken22's $205m fund treats Africa as a timing play, not charity.

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Event recap6 min read

Farzam Ehsani on Why VALR Sacrifices Money for Values

Colin Iles · 3 Mar 2026

VALR CEO Farzam Ehsani on building Africa's largest crypto exchange, profitability, USDC minting, stablecoins, and why regulation must catch up to the technology.

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Event recap6 min read

Charles Savage on Scaling Easy Equities and Backing ZARU

Colin Iles · 3 Feb 2026

Easy Equities founder Charles Savage on ZARU, the AI accelerant, and building a listed fintech from a nine-cent share price to 1.2 million clients.

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Event recap7 min read

Africa Must Bet on Itself: Aboyeji on Building From the Continent

Colin Iles · 11 Dec 2025

Future Africa co-founder Iyinoluwa Aboyeji tells the AWS Founders Series why global capital will not return, why fintech copycats bore him, and what actually builds a unicorn.

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Event recap7 min read

GB Agboola on Flutterwave and Africa's Payment Superhighway

Colin Iles · 19 Nov 2025

Flutterwave founder GB Agboola on why Nigeria was the hardest market to start in, the $1bn quarter, and how PAPS and stablecoins could reshape African payments.

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Event recap7 min read

How Mounir Nakhla Built MNT-Halan Into Egypt's First Unicorn

Colin Iles · 10 Nov 2025

Mounir Nakhla started by financing tuk-tuks in 2010. Fifteen years on, MNT-Halan has served 8 million customers and disbursed over $15 billion. Here is how he did it.

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Event recap7 min read

Melvyn Lubega on Building Africa's First Edtech Unicorn, Go1

Colin Iles · 13 Oct 2025

Go1 co-founder Melvyn Lubega on building Africa's first edtech unicorn from Oxford to Y Combinator, why customer obsession beats Silicon Valley funding, and the discipline of purpose.

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Event recap6 min read

Clickatell's Pieter de Villiers on 25 Years From Four Lines of Code

Colin Iles · 8 Sept 2025

Clickatell co-founder Pieter de Villiers on building the world's first SMS gateway from a Cape Town flat, raising from Sequoia, and why he wishes he had taken more risk.

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Event recap7 min read

Vuyo Mpako on Building Old Mutual's Venture Arm, Next176

Colin Iles · 7 Aug 2025

Vuyo Mpako, managing director of Next176, unpacks how Old Mutual's venture arm built an 18-company portfolio and why African corporates should be backing startups.

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Event recap7 min read

TymeBank's Tjaart van der Walt on Building a Bank by Design

Colin Iles · 10 Jul 2025

Tyme Group's Tjaart van der Walt on how design, distribution and crazy belief built an 18.2 million customer digital bank across South Africa and Asia.