All the companies that Michael Jordaan owns

Former banker turned venture capitalist Michael Jordaan has funded and helped grow several noteworthy companies in South Africa, including a bank, cryptocurrency exchange, and mobile network.

Jordaan attended high school at the Paul Roos Gymnasium in the 1980s before studying economics and banking supervision at the Stellenbosch University.

Jordaan became well known in the South African business sphere during his stint as FNB’s chief executive officer from 2004 to 2013.

The innovation-minded banker was just 36 years old when he took over South Africa’s oldest bank but would leave an indelible mark on the institution.

Leveraging his experience at Deutsche Bank, Origin Bank, and in several other executive roles at FNB, Jordaan pushed FNB into the digital era.

Under his leadership, the share price of FNB parent company FirstRand jumped from R5.54 at the start of his tenure to R35.70 in 2013. FNB’s customers also jumped from about four million to nine million in his eight years of leadership.

Since stepping down as FNB CEO, Jordaan has invested in 25 ventures through his investment vehicle, Montegray Capital, which he launched in the same year as his exit.

Jordaan has explained the change required a major change in mindset — from being averse to risk to almost embracing it.

Jordaan’s main strategy is to focus on companies that have already found some customers who are happy with the product or service.

He describes himself as a “techno-optimist” investor, referring to the technology-driven nature of many of his ventures.

Among his most successful projects is South African mobile network operator Rain, known for its disruptive, uncapped, low-cost data plans.

It was also the first telecoms company in South Africa to launch fixed-5G services for personal Internet users.

Rain was borne out of Jordaan and former FirstRand CEO Paul Harris’ combined investment into telecommunications services and products provider MultiSource.

MultiSource acquired Broadlink and iBurst parent Wireless Business Solutions (WBS) in November 2016.

WBS held the licences to radio frequency spectrum, which WBS used to launch iBurst. After the acquisition, it converted its whole network to LTE (4G) technology.

The big breakthrough was Jordaan and Harris striking a roaming deal with Vodacom, allowing WBS and the country’s biggest mobile network to share infrastructure.

The agreement helped both Vodacom and WBS improve their network performance and coverage at a minimal cost.

In 2017, iBurst’s network was replaced with a new LTE-A network and WBS was rebranded as Rain.

Rain initially launched with commercial LTE-A wholesale packages resold by other Internet service providers in 2018 before going direct to consumers.

Montegray Capital owns 9.04% of Rain, which was valued at R24.95 billion by September 2024.

Based on that valuation, Jordaan’s stake in the company was worth around R2.26 billion.

Crypto and banking

Jordaan was also among the first investors in one of South Africa’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges — VALR — which launched in 2018.

The exchange was valued at roughly $240 million (R3.7 billion at the time) in 2022 and is the country’s largest by trade volumes.

It exceeded a milestone of one million customers in 2024 as its global expansion picked up pace, with 500,000 new users added in a year.

However, Jordaan told MyBroadband that Montegray Capital had largely exited VALR by February 2025.

Jordaan also co-founded and chairs Bank Zero, a low-cost digital bank launched in 2021.

While Bank Zero has largely flown under the radar, it has repeatedly ranked the most affordable bank in MyBroadband and other institutions’ pricing comparisons.

Among its standout features is a patented card that Bank Zero claims has kept its banking environment completely fraud-free

Aside from Rain, Bank Zero, and VALR, Montegray has partnered with or provided funding to 22 ventures, including well-known rooibos ice tea maker Bos and e-books and learning materials provider Snapplify.com.

The table and infographic below show all of the companies in which Michael Jordaan has invested through Montegray Capital.