Startup success stories enabled by section 12J

As Ventureburn will be hosting our first-ever webinar series focusing on Section 12J, we have decided to unpack several success stories of investee companies of Kalon Venture Partners.

Ventureburn will be hosting our first webinar on 1 September 2020 at 11am

The first webinar will take place on 1 September 2020 at 11am (see this story) and will be held in partnership with Kalon Venture Partners, a registered Section 12J Venture Capital Company.0

Through investment in the Section 12J sector, Kalon Venture Partners a disruptive technology focused Fund has been able to raise capital from multiple investors looking to take advantage of the tax break and to invest in the fast-growing technology sector.

 Kalon Venture Partners invests in the best entrepreneurial talent South Africa has to offer while supporting the development of South Africa’s economy, the resulting job creation, and positive change. 

As a technology Venture Capital company, Kalon Venture Partners with its leader and CEO Clive Butkow has a “High Touch” methodology and approach. The team at Kalon Venture Partners assists these companies with hands-on involvement to help build the businesses into assets of value. 

Kalon Venture Partners’ investee companies and their success stories enabled by section 12J.

Ozow

Ozow is an AEFT (Automated Electronic Fund Transfer) payment solution for both buyers and merchants that allows for secure and instant payment on all smart mobile and desktop devices. The platform ensures payments are conducted safely and simply. 

Since it’s launch, Ozow claims that it has processed more than R10-billion through its merchant clients

Almost three years after Kalon Venture Partners’ first investment into Ozow in 2017 the company scaled close to 800% from a growth perspective.

Mobiz

Mobiz  is a user-friendly enterprise tool that allows businesses to create beautiful, personalised and targeted digital marketing campaigns, deploy to customers via its integrated SmartSMS channel (with a zero mobile data cost to the consumer), and seamlessly gather customer behavioural insights. These insights can be used to enrich CRM or automate follow-up engagement. Mobiz has often been referred to as MailChimp for SMS.

Kalon Venture Partners is Mobiz’s first institutional investor in its five years of active commercialisation. 

Mobiz’s has attributed its most recent success in sales and overall revenue increase to Kalon Venture Partners. 

“The R15-million investment from Kalon Venture Partners allowed us to improve our product and sales, giving room for our marketing technology business to grow over three times over during Covid. This growth can be seen in an overall turn over from R2.5-million to over R8-million in monthly revenue. With Clive’s leadership and active participation in growing our businesses, Kalon has put Mobiz on many leading enterprises’ strategic roadmap. For an ambitious B2B startup, I don’t believe there’s a more ideal partner than Kalon VP, and we find ourselves very fortunate to be one of their investee companies.”

Sendmarc

Sendmarc helps companies protect themselves, their customers, and their brand from email phishing and spoofing attacks on their domain using successful DMARC implementation. 

SendMarc’s software enables you to easily understand who is sending email on your domain, where the threats lie, and the steps one would need to undertake to authenticate email and protect your company. By easily being able to identify and authorise legitimate senders, you can keep your brand secure without risking email deliverability

Kalon Venture Partners’ investment into Sendmarc made it possible to meet the high demand for their services and invest in critical resources sooner – short-circuiting the growth process in many areas of the business. The venture capital company has assisted and contributed to the growth and scaling of Sendmarc by adding strategic value as well as utilising their extensive networks to open doors. 

Flow

Flow is a home rental marketplace that connects profiled tenants with rated landlords to make renting easier and cheaper. Flow rewards tenants for good rental behaviour in their rental journey with discounts and deals on electricity, data, entertainment, and more.

Over and above the capital that Kalon Venture Partners invested in Flow, the venture capital company is a partner that provides strategic input that is fundamentally rooted in the principles of growing a venture-backed tech company. 

This allows Flow to maximize the potential value from the partnership as there is alignment on this fundamental mindset while Kalon supports Flow on its growth journey. Additionally, the team behind Kalon Venture Partners have provided access to their network and distribution channels and domain knowledge in their relevant diverse sectors of expertise.

Carscan

Carscan is a global first car data marketplace to capture and share accurate, reliable, agnostic, and traceable digital records of a car’s identity. Carscan helps the ecosystem to confidently buy, sell, rent, service, insure, finance, and audit cars by reducing fraud, governance, and industry risks. 

The augmented reality and AI-based app expedite the insurance claim process from weeks to minutes.

Carscan explains that even though they have been working with Kalon Ventures Partners over a short period, they have been able to positively benefit in record time. 

“Kalon Venture Partners has embedded itself into Carscan as a part of the team, making sure, that we build our foundations right to scale ourselves exponentially. Kalon Venture Partners opened up the doors to the most expansive network they have built over their lifetime.”

This content has been created in partnership with Kalon Venture Partners, a registered Section 12J Venture Capital Company.

Read more: Part one: All you need to know about Section 12J
Read more: New Section 12J impact study shows scheme has been a success says association
Read more: Part two: All you need to know about Section 12J