South Africa’s ‘Top web startups’: Did they make it?
In 2007 the term Web 2.0 rose to prominence in South Africa, fuelled partly by a very vocal blogging community. During this time numerous new websites – all dubbed as Web 2.0 initiatives – were launched, promising to revolutionise the local Internet environment.
The ‘web 2.0’ hype and boom in blogging and new media websites inspired well known online entrepreneur Charl Norman to write an article entitled ‘South Africa’s web startups to watch’.
This article was widely hailed as a list of who’s who in the new media space in South Africa, with websites like Amatomu, Synthasite, Blueworld, Afrigator, Zoopy, Muti and Vottle listed as startups to keep an eye on.
We caught up with a few of the promising start ups listed by Norman to answer the question that many people wondered back in 2007: Are they profitable and sustainable?
It was encouraging to find that most of these online initiatives grew over the last few years with many employing staff and even turning a profit.
Several of these initiatives have received funding, another sign that there is a fair amount of confidence in the local Internet market.
On top of the pile is serial entrepreneur Vinny Lingham’s Synthasite – now known as Yola – which received around R250-million in funding since its launch. Zoopy, Blueworld and Afrigator all grew and in some cases turned profitable.
The following table provides a snapshot of the current status of the various initiatives mentioned by Norman back in 2007.
| Website/Business | Founding members | Funding/Investment | Full time employees | Profitable |
| Yola (SynthaSite) | Vinny Lingham | Yes (R250million) | 65 | Not yet, but growing fast |
| Zoopy | Jason Elk, Gerry da Silva, Pat Elk | Yes (Vodacom) | 23 | Not disclosed (Unlikely) |
| Blueworld / Zoopedup | Brent Brooks, Bradley Voges, Charl Norman | Yes (Media24) | 13 | Yes |
| Afrigator | Mike Stopforth, Justin Hartman, Stiaan Pretorius, Mark Forrester | Yes, but repurchased back by founders | 4 | Yes |
| MyVideo | Rowan Polovin, Tristan Owen, Michael Salzwedel | Yes | 3 | Yes |
| Freelancecentral | Jo Duxbury | None | 2 | Yes |
| Vottle | Greg de Chasteauneuf, Ronnie Apteker, Andrew Murray, Colin Peterson, Justin Spratt, Richard van Katwijk, Gus MacRobert | Yes | 3 Part time | Yes |
| ModelBase | Peter Sserwanga | None | 1 | Yes |
| Amatomu | Vincent Maher, Matthew Buckland | Yes, but repurchased back by founders | 2 Part Time | No |
| Muti | Neville Newey, Dave Duarte | No | Part Time only | No |
| iBlog | Mark Garbers | Acquired by ITWeb | ||
| MyGenius | John Raath, Doug Timberlake | MyGenius did not reply to requests for information | ||
| iJol | Founders uncertain | iJol did not reply to requests for information | ||
| Amagama | Vincent Maher, Matthew Buckland | Amagama was closed due to a lack of interest | ||
Web Startups in SA << do you know of any other good online startups?
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