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More SA tech taken abroad

Bonnie Tubbs
By Bonnie Tubbs
Johannesburg, 13 Mar 2015
SA makes up only 1% of the world's ICT industry.
SA makes up only 1% of the world's ICT industry.

Although SA only constitutes 1% of the world's ICT industry, the pool of South Africans that have hit the big time in the greater technology world belies that marginal number.

While concerns have been raised around local tech talent uprooting to international pastures, Thumbzup - former Google SA head Stafford Masie's home-grown company behind the Payment Pebble - is expanding abroad rapidly, while keeping its roots fixed in SA.

The technology behind the Payment Pebble - a mobile point of sale (mPOS) solution currently used in SA exclusively by the country's largest bank by customer numbers, Absa - has already crossed the seas into Australia. Now, says Masie, big plans are afoot for further expansion.

This week, the latest iteration of the Payment Pebble mPOS device, a single-purpose complete device now dubbed the Payment Pebble Handset (previously referred to as the Payment Blade) was officially unveiled with Barclays Africa in Johannesburg's business hub Sandton.

While an exclusivity agreement is in place with Absa regarding the original Payment Pebble, the new Payment Pebble Handset, which entered pilot phase late last year, does not fall under this, Masie says. The Payment Pebble exclusivity limitation comes to an end this year, although the Thumbzup founder was not at liberty to say much more than this would be "soon".

With regards to launching the product with other local banks, Masie is also guarded, saying only "the possibilities are endless".

International ambition

Its plans to take its tech abroad have been keeping the Thumbzup team busy, says Masie. Once the company has "made sure our backyard is covered", Africa north of SA's borders and the Northern Hemispheres are the next frontier.

"We want to dominate at home first. You can expect to see things emerge in the near future in Africa. The Payment Pebble Handset is perfect for Africa and we have seen a lot of interest. This is on our short-term radar."

We want to dominate at home first, says Stafford Masie.
We want to dominate at home first, says Stafford Masie.

Beyond that, Masie says the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), with which the company has partnered to deploy the Payment Pebble under the FastPay brand in Australia and New Zealand, will present its next opportunity. "They have a large footprint and we intend expanding up into their territories [across Asia]."

Further to that, he says, a partnership will emerge from the Western Hemisphere - an announcement around which will be made public this year. "[In the Northern Hemisphere] the US and Japan are obviously short-term targets and we are actively engaging there. We believe we [will garner] a presence in at least two significant geographies in the second half of this year."

Local beginnings

Thumbzup joins many others in seeing its tech being exported internationally, says Brian Neilson, director at BMI-TechKnowledge. However, he says, "the really good ideas go global fairly quickly and the people usually go with them".

PayPal founder Elon Musk and Thawte creator Mark Shuttleworth are two prominent examples. ICT expert Adrian Schofield says, when it comes to taking local tech abroad, the DStv decoder - or controlled access to satellite pay-TV - also comes to mind.

Neilson cites Syspro and Sage Pastel as two more examples.

In 2011, international payment giant Visa opted to invest $110 million in Cape Town-based payment solutions company Fundamo, after having scoured the globe for options.

Soon after it began developing the Pebble, Thumbzup secured international venture capital backing estimated at R120 million. Thumbzup management is reluctant to disclose details of its backers or the extent of their shareholding.

The appointment of Avi Eyal, head of Entr'ee Capital, to the Thumbzup board in 2012 indicates Entr'ee is among its investors. The UK venture capital firm holds stakes in several mobile transaction businesses, including Norwegian company mCASH, Israeli company Riskified and Zappit in the UK.