Seedstars World, the global seed-stage startup competition for emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes brought its Angola round to a successful close during Seedstars Luanda. The event took place last week and eight selected startups were invited to present their ideas in front of the local jury panel.
The local winner, Tupuca, an online food delivery platform serving over 20 000 customers, delivering over 80 000 meals in the first year and creating over 75 jobs, was selected the best startup in Angola for its adjective solution.
As a part of the prize, Tupuca will be participating at the Seedstars Summits in Mozambique and Switzerland later this year to represent Angola.
“Tupuca has been officially introduced to the world. We believe that we have unlocked new opportunities by winning Seedstar Luanda 2017. We can’t wait to see what Moçambique and the rest of the world has to offer,” says Erickson Mvezi, co-founder of Tupuca.
“Tupuca competed in last year’s edition as well but weren’t strong enough at that time to win. We are extremely proud of the progress they have made since then, and for them to come back with so much traction this edition does not only show courage, but also determination and persistence. Tupuca is the deserved winner for this year’s edition,” says Claudia Makadristo, regional manager for Africa at Seedstars World.
The first runner up was Na Via, A company that tries to revolutionise the way the bottom line of society accesses advertising campaigns and Deya, Angola’s first crowdfunding platform took the third place.
Sanlam To Buy Absa Consultants And Actuaries For R285 Million
South African financial services group, Sanlam Life Insurance, on Monday entered into agreements to acquire 100 percent of the issued share capital of Absa Consultants and Actuaries (ACA) from Absa Financial Services for a consideration of R285 million.
ACA houses the entire employee benefits offering of the Absa Group and provides consulting on asset, actuarial, health and benefit, and also administration to retirement funds in the South African retirement fund market.
It has a substantial book of stand-alone funds as well as a commercial umbrella fund and has in total 119 retirement funds with 339,614 active and inactive members, and assets of approximately R84 billion under administration.
Sanlam Employee Benefits (SEB) chief executive, Dawie de Villiers, said the transaction will provide SEB with further scale in a market where the opportunities to exponentially grow the administration and consulting parts of the business are limited.
“Scale is fundamentally important in the employee benefits industry to ensure a sustainable business model. In this regard the potential transaction positions us very well to further expand our product offering and service levels to clients and intermediaries,” De Villiers said.
Managing executive for fiduciary services at Absa Financial Services, Marcel de Klerk, said that while ACA was performing well, it will benefit more from operating in the SEB environment where the core focus is employee benefits.
“The employees of ACA will remain employed by ACA post the transaction. We believe Sanlam Life will be a suitable shareholder of ACA and will be capable of providing support where necessary due to its significant operations in both the private and umbrella fund markets as well as its credibility in the market place,” De Klerk said.
“ACA will continue to fulfill its contractual obligations to its clients as normal prior to and after the transaction is concluded. We therefore do not foresee a disruption in services or the quality of service that our clients have come to expect.”
De Klerk said the transaction was expected to be concluded by the end of 2017. However, the transaction remains subject to certain conditions precedent including obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals, which includes the approval of the Competition Tribunal.
