SA’s Snapt on track for 1000% revenue growth after landing $3m investment

Two years after raising $1-million in funding, SA tech company Snapt this week landed $3-million from three local investors — Nedbank, Sanari Capital and Convergence Partners (which took part in the earlier round) — and is on track to record a 1000% increase in revenue this financial year.

The company, which was founded in 2012 by Dave Blakey (pictured above) and Douglas Cherry, did not disclose the size of the equity stake that the investors have taken in the company.

Snapt provides applications delivery controller solutions which help websites and apps with load balancing, as well as web acceleration and security which enable business-critical websites to stay online and perform quickly as well as securely.

In a press release yesterday (5 December) the startup said the new investment will be used to expand sales and marketing efforts globally, including expansion of its US presence and worldwide channel programme, in addition to key research and development initiatives.

SA startup Snapt which has secured a $3-million in funding is on track to record a 1000% increase in revenue in the current financial year over the previous period

Blakey told Ventureburn today from the US — where he is on a two week business trip — that the company is on track to record revenue growth for the current financial year of 1000% over the previous financial year. It follows growth of 400% in the last financial year, he added.

He said the company has 25 employees — with about three quarters of these based in the Cape Town office — but is looking to grow this number, following the latest funding round. In 2016 the company had just five employees.

However he conceded that a large part of the funding would be used to hire staff in leadership roles in the company’s San Jose and Atlanta offices. The company opened the San Jose office in recent months and its Atlanta office a year and a half a ago.

He said the company would be hiring “quite aggressively” in both Cape Town and Johannesburg (where it has five employees).

US raised planned in next six months

Last year, the company claimed it had more than 10 000 active users from over 50 countries. Some of Snapt’s clients include US department store Target, MTV and IT giant Intel as well as Nasa.

About 65% of the company’s clients are US companies which range from startups to the Fortune 500 firms. A further 25% are in Europe and the remainder are mostly concentrated in Asia, he said.

Blakey said since the company’s first seed investment of about $350 000 from SA venture capital (VC) fund 4Di Capital in late 2012, the company has raised all together about $4.5-million.

He said the idea now is to make a further capital raise in the next six to 12 months, but from US investors, once more staff had been hired for the US offices.

Read more: Snapt bags R15m for international expansion

*Ventureburn writer Daniel Mpala also assisted in writing this article.

Featured image: Snapt founder and CEO Dave (Dave Blakey via Facebook)