Meta has announced the launch of Meta AI in South Africa with built-in Llama 3 on WhatsApp. This is a leapfrog step for…
2012’s top 10 most popular startups on Ventureburn
Which were the 10 most popular startups on Ventureburn this year? We’re glad you asked.
To compile this list we trawled through our logs and found the startup stories that generated the most views. Let us know what your favourite startups were.
Umuntu Media’s Mimiboards seemed to grab people’s attention in a big way. We took a look at how the geographically sensitive, virtual noticeboards form part of an emerging publishing platform, social network and advertising empire that earned Umuntu Media a US$1 million seed investment late last year.
We found Härnu to be something unique and called it “map-based social networking.” One of its most compelling features is its ability to act as a type of Babel fish — the fictional universal translator from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which simultaneously translates from one spoken language to another — so there’s no language barrier to one-to-one conversations.
HealthQ burst onto the scene late in 2012 in sensational fashion when the Stellenbosch, Western Cape startup announced that it had created the world’s first metabolic chamber. The launch, presided over by the Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille revealed the project’s impressive investor roster and HealthQ’s first consumer product, LifeQ, which will be able to determine the amount of calories and type of food that is being metabolised by the user in real-time. The metabolic chamber would play an integral role in testing and industrialising LifeQ.
Where is Africa’s Square competitor? 2012 saw the rise of a few contenders, and while CheqOut looked like it might bring about the disruption we were hoping for, plans for a full rollout was put on ice as the startup pursued EMV compliancy.
A social networking service that’s bigger than Facebook? Yup. 2go, a South African startup reported that it had crossed the 10 million user mark — a significant number seeing as it was estimated that Facebook had managed to attract just over five-million users in the Nigerian market at the time.
We discovered how Table Magic is Africa’s biggest answer to well-known restaurant review and booking services like Zagat and OpenTable.
WyseTalk popped up on our radar in a big way when the social media for enterprise startup, secured first phase funding in excess of US$1 million.
Moneysmart, the online personal finance manager (PFM) exited beta with a new look, smartphone apps, and direct integration with all but one South African bank. We also learned about the startup’s plans for the future, the identities of its financial backers and growth since it was soft launched in November 2011.
Daily Dish is definitely one of our favourite startups for 2012. The service allows “ordinary home cooks” to select dishes from a weekly online menu; the ingredients and step-by-step recipes for these dishes are then delivered, same day, if the orders are placed before 10AM.
Real Time Wine pries wine culture out of the haughty clutches of the snootiest of connoisseurs and makes it an unpretentious experience. The 140-character social wine review and discovery startup secured funding in 2012 and became one of our favourite ways of experiencing new wines.
