Tappit Africa: Quicket, Old School Group and UK’s tappit in new joint venture

Multi-brand sports group Old School Group and events ticketing startup Quicket have teamed up with a UK-based cashless payment solutions provider tappit to form a new joint venture company dubbed tappit Africa.

tappit Africa will provide seamless radio-frequency identification (RFID) cashless experiences at festivals, conferences, concerts and sporting events – as well as schools, universities and stadia — across South Africa and the broader Sub-Saharan region.

While the value of the joint venture has not been disclosed, Knife Capital partner Keet van Zyl said a significant investment amount was required to integrate tappit’s solutions and establish the local infrastructure to execute large-scale events with RFID devices, staffing and operational expenditure.

tappit Africa will provide RFID cashless experiences at large-scale events across South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa

Last year the Knife Capital — one of Quicket’s main investors — invested in the startup, with a portion of the funds spent on refining the company’s ticketing solution to integrate it with event-related tech for a seamless user experience.

Van Zyl said the VC firm had also engaged with various local and international players in the cashless payments vertical to find a partner with the best technology solution, culminating in the joint venture.

“tappit Africa’s cashless experiences will help South African event organisers improve cash management and optimise reconciliation, also providing them with a wealth of information on fans’ spending habits, enabling them to improve future events,” tappit said in a statement on Wednesday (31 January).

tappit’s Rob Groombridge will be the new company’s managing director while Old School Group’s Gerhadi Odendaal and Quicket founder James Hedley will also form part of tappit Africa’s leadership team.

“Our new joint venture, tappit Africa, is committed to supporting the organisers of world-class events by revolutionising the way fans and vendors enjoy the experience through seamless integration of technology elements like ticketing and cashless payments,” said Groombridge.

“We are delighted to be part of this joint venture where we can leverage tappit’s experience in managing cashless payments for large-scale events like the Dubai Rugby 7s for the South African market,” added Hendley.

Cashless payment experience to be used at Zando Cape Town 10s

tappit Africa will this week showcase its cashless payment experience at the Zando Cape Town 10s — one of South Africa’s biggest social sport and lifestyle events — which kicked off yesterday (1 February) and will end tomorrow (3 February) at Hamilton Rugby Club in Cape Town.

“It is extremely important for event organisers and rights holders to know and understand their customers’ behaviours. Cashless payment is certainly one of the most exciting technologies within the live events industry and we know we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg with how this technology is used,” said Odendaal.

“We’re looking forward to really leading this growing trend with tappit and Quicket,” he concluded.