Kudoti crowned SA’s startup champion for 2020

Kudoti, a waste tech startup has won the prestigious Aim Virtual Startup Pitch Competition for 2020 and will head to Dubai to compete at Aim Startup National Champions League, later this year.

The Aim Virtual Startup Pitch Competition South Africa forms part of a bigger competition that will have over 80 countries going head to head for the winning title.

Organised by the Annual Investment Meeting (Aim) Organising Committee and the Startup Mzansi Foundation, the SA focused competition had some stellar entries.

Kudoti will head to Dubai to compete in the Aim Startup National Champions League

Several South Africa’s business leaders attended the event, including the likes of Allon Raiz, Vusi Thembekwayo, Dikatso Sephoti, Dr. Audrey Verhaeghe, Dr. Jerry Gule, Dr. Sumarie Roodt, and H.E. Prof. Dr. Ambassador Tal Edgars. These experts in the industry evaluated the four startups who presented their pitches.

Founder of the Startup Mzansi Foundation, Sandile Shabangu, who was the host of the event emphasized the importance of startups in global economic development.

He shared that it will be the entrepreneurs, startups, creative thinkers, leaders, and crazy ones who will change the current global status.

Kudoti

Co-founded by Gift Lubele, a former research engineer, Kudoti utilises hardware and software technology to enhance recycling rates and increase efficiency in the waste industry. Using IoT sensors, Kudoti collects data which is then combined with their developed software solutions to improve waste logistics and processing.

During their virtual pitch, Lubele shared that he believes that waste is an untapped resource that Africa can get at the forefront of.

“I believe in a world where waste is valued and I strongly believe that the African continent can be the next leader when it comes to the circular economy.”

Within the pitch, Lubele shared that the main challenges that the waste industry in Africa is facing are twofold; a high level of inefficiency caused by paper-based processes and resources are wasted by manual services whereas these services could be easily automated.

The two main issues collide together to result in very low margins among key waste stakeholders.

In response to these challenges, Kudoti has streamlined the processes and digitization essentially eliminating all unnecessary processes in waste management companies,  increasing  efficiency through optimization of existing resources available and lastly improve performance and analytics through measurements of key activities in the waste industry.

Watch the virutal pitch below:

The platform has been enabled to be suitable for recycling SME’s in the informal sector and large waste management companies.

Kudoti will go on to compete in the Aim later this year held in Dubai with an all-expenses-paid trip valued at  over R100 000 (see this story) to compete in the global competition.

The South African champion will have to compete against startups from 80 other countries across the globe.

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Featured image: Gift Lubele, co-founder and director of Kudoti (Supplied)