SA Startup AIR makes it as finalist in Citibank Tech for Integrity Challenge

Always In-touch Real-time (AIR) founder Prashant Paima is waiting eagerly to hear whether his online security service startup has been chosen as the winner of this year’s Citi Tech for Integrity Challenge (T4I) after taking part in a pitching event in Abu Dhabi earlier this month.

The Johannesburg-based startup is competing against 102 other startups from around the world who are pitching in events in six different cities (see the list here).

The challenge kicked off in Abu Dhabi on 14 and 15 May and ends with Hyderabad, India on 12 and 13 June. The overall winner will be announced next month, following the conclusion of the last pitching event.

A panel of judges will consider six aspects for each participant: global reach, innovation, integrity impact, functionality, implementation feasibility and scalability.

Paima said he initially bootstrapped the company with an amount of close to R400,000 in the initial years after he founded the company in 2005, relying on a team of two lawyers, a chartered accountant and a “technical guru”.

The startup aims to utilise the principal of blockchain, by relying on users’ credentials to generate a public key which is then converted to a private key. Only the authorising system is able to decipher this private key and confirm the identity of the user.

“We don’t store user credentials or anything, we just provide a secure… communication between the user and the host,” said Paima. 

Currently the service retails for 60 US cents (which can vary). “We were looking at charging a $1.10 per month and you can utilise the service forever,” he said.

‘I was afraid of pitching my idea for fear that someone would steal it’

He says in addition to its existing product AIR is also also looking to pivot into the governmental sector.

Paima recalls how he had gone through “all the innovation hubs to the VCs to the startup incubators” just to get his business where it is today.

The startup, he said, has found it slightly easier to open doors for the company after winning the World’s Top50 SME award in 2011, an event hosted by infoDev (a division of World Bank).

He also touched on his fear that pitching his idea to other people would allows someone else to steal his product.

“I was afraid of giving my idea away because someone would take it away from me and design it themselves,” he said.

The team that put AIR together has learned the importance of persistence. “Two things that you need is persistence and determination. If you believe in your product and your solution then… don’t be afraid to throw your idea around,” said Paima.