Rain founders secretly launch new company

Several of Rain’s founders have quietly launched a Singapore-based 5G hardware company called RainX, MyBroadband has learned.

Word of the company’s existence first emerged in a media blitz by global chip giant MediaTek, which was promoting several 5G products RainX had launched powered by its MTK T830 chip.

These products included Rain South Africa’s recently launched the101 Pro 5G router and the101 Extender mesh Wi-Fi unit.

Rain introduced its the101 5G router in November last year. It is powered by MediaTek’s T750 chip.

MediaTek’s press release quoted Rain CEO Brandon Leigh as the founder and director of Rainx.

However, when MyBroadband contacted Rain and Leigh for more details about RainX, they directed our query elsewhere.

A spokesperson said RainX was not a subdivision of Rain South Africa and that our other four questions should be directed to Aaron Harris.

A search for Aaron Harris on LinkedIn revealed that he is RainX’s product manager and a marketing coordinator who was a contractor at Rain when it launched 5G and the first the101 routers.

By this point, we had also looked up RainX’s registration details in Singapore’s companies database and knew that it had been incorporated in August 2023 — before the launch of the first the101 router.

Harris confirmed that RainX was established in 2023, but was evasive about the relationship between Rain and RainX — only reiterating that the two companies are separate and not part of the same group.

“Following global interest in the success of 5G FWA and the original the101, Rain SA recognised that it would require dedicated focus and significant capital to both maintain the current CPEs and advance the development of new 5G CPEs,” Harris stated.

“Rain SA decided against investing directly in hardware, including the management of the original the101, opting instead to support the ecosystem through a strategic partnership with RainX.”

Regarding our question about why RainX was incorporated in Singapore, Harris said that the Southeast Asian region was emerging as a critical hub for 5G deployment and technological innovation.

“With its diverse and rapidly expanding digital economy, the region presents vast opportunities in 5G,” he said.

Harris also said RainX had been expanding rapidly, with operations and partners in strategic locations around the world, including Singapore, Shenzhen, the Philippines, and South Africa.

Asked whether RainX supplies operators other than Rain SA, Harris said they had received very positive responses from mobile network operators and virtual operators in other markets.

“Once these partnerships are in the public domain, we’ll share details with you,” he assured.

With limited feedback regarding the relationship, owners, and staff at RainX, MyBroadband obtained the company’s full registration records.

These showed that Rain software development product owner Garth Fox was listed as RainX’s data protection officer.

The document also revealed that RainX had three primary directors — Roger Grobler, Brandon Leigh, and Willem Roos.

Grobler was a Rain co-founder and major investor along with Roos. Roos also previously served as Rain’s CEO.

In addition, the documents showed that RainX had one shareholder — a Mauritian company called Rosaceae Aequitas International.

Rosaceae Aequitas is Latin that literally translates to Rose Equity. Roos is Afrikaans for rose.

Querying the company registration for this company confirmed that Roos was indeed the main director of the Mauritian company.

The relationships between these individuals, Rain and RainX, are illustrated in the graphic below.

We contacted Roos for comment, who directed our queries back to Leigh. This time, Leigh arranged an interview.

Leigh explained that RainX was established because of the chilling effect that the United States trade embargoes against Huawei and other Chinese companies had on the development of 5G technology.

He said that during the development of the101 router, they realised that producing hardware was a distraction to Rain South Africa’s core operations and would be better handled in a separate entity.

“Our shareholders and partners also didn’t sign up for Rain Africa to become a crazy startup. That’s not our mandate,” Leigh said.

“There’s no business case to say, ‘Let’s go make some drones.’ Even though I think it’d be quite fun, it’s not our business as Rain South Africa.”

As for the choice of Singapore, Leigh said it all came down to logistics.

South Africa is too far from chipmakers and other component manufacturers. RainX also has global ambitions and can better serve the Southeast Asian and European markets from Singapore.

“Singapore just made sense as a — for of a lack of better word — ‘neutral’ place,” Leigh said.

“With China and the US… you don’t really know what’s coming.”

Leigh declined to comment on the amount invested in RainX, only saying that future funding rounds will likely occur.