Written by Douglas Imarulu
Success stories inspire success stories. This article was originally published on
Ventures Africa, a VC4Africa publishing partner.
The number of millionaires springing up from digital ventures has grown
tremendously in the past two decades, as the world increasingly embrace the
potential of knowledge technologies, information and social media to produce
economic benefits , employment and enable globalisation. From Mark
Zuckerberg to Sergey Brin, Lawrence E. Page and YouTube partners: Steve
Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, the world has witnessed a new breed of
entrepreneurs who have charted a new course in business and made a fortune
at it. The good news – Africa is not lagging behind.
Innovative minds in the motherland have cited and exploited opportunities in the
knowledge economy, which has become more prominent as the internet usage
and importance increased over the years. In this article, Ventures Africa
shortlists, in no respective order, 10 Africans who have successfully amassed a
fortune from founding million dollar internet companies.
1,Vinny Lingham
Founder Yola Inc, South Africa
South Africa’s Vinny Lingham is the founder of the popular free web building,
publishing and hosting services site Yola Inc (previously named SynthaSite)
based in San Francisco. Yola has attracted over $30 million in venture capital
financing from investors such as Columbus Venture Capital and plays host to
over 3 million active users across the globe.
Prior to Yola, Lingham founded Click-2-Customers, a hugely successful search
engine marketing company with offices in London, Cape Town, and Los Angeles
that rakes in about $100 million in annual revenues.
The millionaire entrepreneur recently announced the launch of ‘Gyft’ – which
aims to challenge the United States’ $100 billion plastic gift card market by
bringing gift cards to consumers’ mobile phones.
2, Mark Shuttleworth
Founder Thawte and Ubuntu/Knife Capital, South Africa
Mark Shuttleworth is Africa’s first dot com millionaire. When Shuttleworth was
22, he founded Thawte, a digital certificate and internet security company he
later sold to VeriSign for $575 million in an all stock deal in 1999. It is the
second largest provider of digital certification the world.
At age 26, Shuttleworth used a fraction of his proceeds to start HBD Capital
(now called Knife Capital), a Cape Town-based emerging markets investment
fund.
Shuttleworth also founded and funds Ubuntu, a computer operating system
which he distributes as free open source software. He has a reported net worth
of $500 million.
3,Njeri Rionge
Co-founder Wananchi Online, Kenya
Njeri Rionge is the co-founder of Wananchi Online – a leading Internet service
provider which has gone on to become East Africa’s leading cable, broadband
and IP (Internet-based) Phone Company.
Dubbed ‘one of Kenya’s most successful serial entrepreneurs’, she succeeded in
turning a $500,000 start up to into East Africa’s top internet firm valued at
$175 million dollar.
“Wanachi was a roller coaster ride in which we sought to challenge the
assumption of regulators, the government officials and competitors that the
Internet was not only relevant for the elite.” The Business woman told forbes in
an interview.
The internet providing company became hugely successful that it rose close to
$60 million in growth capital from a consortium private equity firm.
4,Jason Njoku
Founder & CEO iRokoTv, Nigeria
The Nigerian Internet entrepreneur is the founder of Iroko TV – the world’s
largest digital distributor of African movies. Iroko TV was labeled the ‘Netflix of
Africa’ according to forbes.
in 2013, Iroko TV raised $8 million in venture capital from Tiger Global
Management, a New York-based private equity and hedge fund run by
billionaire Chase Coleman.
The online streaming website, profits from lucrative content distribution deals
with Dailymotion, iTunes, Amazon and Vimeo.
Analysts believe IrokoTV could be worth an estimated $30 million and CEO
Njoku is the company’s largest individual shareholder.
5,Elon Musk
Co-founder PayPal, South Africa
Born to a South African father and Canadian mother, Elon Musk is the co-
founder of ecommerce payment system Paypal.
In March 2002, Musk co-founded X.com, a financial services and email
payments company. One year later, x.com acquired Confinity – originally a
company formed to beam money between Palm Pilots – and the combined
entity focused on email payments through the PayPal domain, acquired as part
of Confinity.
In February 2001, X.com changed its legal name to PayPal. In October 2002,
PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in a stock deal. Before its sale,
Musk, the company’s largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal’s shares.
The business mogul is also known for founding Space Exploration Technologies
or SpaceX – the first private company to launch a rocket into space – and for
founding Tesla Motors, an electric car company.
6,Herman Heunis
Founder & former CEO MXit, South Africa
Heunis is the CEO and founder of South African social networking site MXit – a
free online instant messenger that runs on close to 3000 mobile handsets. In 2012, Heunis sold the company to World of Avatar for around $61 million. The
site is a phenomenon in South Africa, and now has close to 40 million users in
more than 120 countries – with 40,000 new subscribers joining daily, it is fast
emerging as the biggest instant messaging service in South Africa and
Indonesia.
Heunis earlier also established an ICT consultancy firm in 1990, creating Swist
Group Technologies in 1998 – a software development company that would
ultimately produce MXit Lifestyle.
7,Justin Stanford
Founder & CEO, 4Di Group/Co-founder Silicon Cape Initiative, South Africa
South African-born Stanford – a software entrepreneur and venture capitalist –
is the founder of 4Di Group, an investment holding company headquartered in
Cape Town, South Africa. It operates four major companies in Southern Africa
including ESET Southern Africa, iViZ Security, 4Di Capital and 4Di Privaca.
After dropping out of high school he set up an internet security company which
eventually flopped, but when he came across ESET – a Slovakian anti-virus
software package, he negotiated with its manufacturers and acquired the
exclusive, lucrative Southern African distribution rights for the product.
Stanford’s ESET Southern Africa presently operates the ESET brand in the region
and sells ESET’s range of internet security products in about 20 sub-Saharan
countries, recording over $10 million in annual turnover while controlling 5
percent of the anti-virus market in Southern Africa region.
Stanford also co-founded the Silicon Cape Initiative with Vinny Lingham – an
IT business networking NGO that assists individuals with ICT ideas and start-
up entrepreneurs to navigate the many drawbacks associated with the industry
.
8,Adii Pienaar
Co-Founder Woothemes, South Africa
Adii Pienaar is the Founder of Woothemes, one of the world’s most popular
premium wordpress theme companies.
Working virtually with partners worldwide, Adii built Woothemes into a multi-
million dollar business, generating over $2 million in annual revenues from the
sale of its themes.
The company also sells themes for other content management systems
including Tumblr. Adii recently wrote a book titled ”Rockstar Business”, detailing
his experience as an entrepreneur.
9,Justin Clarke & Carey Eaton
Co-founders One Media Africa, South Africa & Kenya
Justin Clarke and Carey Eaton are cofounders of One Africa Media. Africa’s
largest online classifieds group by traffic, page views, advert volume and
revenue.
The South African-based Private Property Holdings and Kenyan Cheki Africa
Media merged their businesses to form One Africa Media which operates in
three economic hubs covering East, South and West Africa. The company has
five brands, namely PrivateProperty, Cheki, Jobberman, BrighterMonday and
SafariNow. These brands are longest-established brands in Africa in their
segments and have started to turn in revenues. Its majority shareholder is New
York-based investment Manager, Tiger Global.
Top Australian recruitment portal Seek reportedly invested $20 million in the
company, acquiring a 25 percent stake. The Australian firm says it values One
Media Africa at $80 million.
10,Kamal Budhabatti
CEO, Craft Silicon, Kenya
Nicknamed Kenyan’s Bill Gate, Kamal is the founder and CEO of Craft Silicon –
a Kenyan Software firm that provides core banking, microfinance, mobile, switch
solutions software and electronic payments services for over 200 institutional
clients in 40 countries spread across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Craft Silicon has an office in Silicon Valley — in Palo Alto, California – one of the
very few Kenyan companies to achieve such a feat.
The software company has a $50 million market value, raking in annual revenue
of $6 million.
Cullage:WC4A
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