When the cellular networking industry came to the fore in the early 1990s, the acceptance of this technology by business and the user community exploded, but no more so than in Africa, a continent that has witnessed cellular subscriber growth rates far in excess of any other.
As this technology matured, so the demand for mobile applications also started to rise. Initially the requirement was for consumer-orientated solutions but the realisation by businesses of the potential impact of this capability, lead to a demand for the mobilisation of their current applications as well as totally new mobile solutions.
The impact globally resulted in the creation of many new companies specifically focusing on providing these solutions. South Africa was no exception to this trend with many new start-ups endeavouring to jump on the bandwagon. One such company was Fundamo, who quickly realised the potential that this country and most others had to offer, as the number cellular telephone subscribers would far outstrip the number of fixed line subscribers, especially in the less developed world.
Fundamo was established back in 1999 and since then has actively worked towards being the leader in mobile banking and payments solutions. For Fundamo this meant not only staying ahead of the technology race, but also meant sharing the responsibility for its clients' success, from concept through roll-out to launching into the market.
This relentless commitment to end-to-end success has certainly paid off for Fundamo and has allowed them to make the transition from being a thought leader in a new industry to fully-fledged solution provider in an increasingly maturing industry.
In addition, this dedication and focus has enabled the company to establish a strong South African base from which it can move into other markets, attract some powerful investors and partners and become recognised for its achievements through being awarded several accolades along the way, the latest of which was the Leadership Award given to Fundamo by Frost & Sullivan in 2006.
Fundamo two key shareholders are VenFin that has a number of hi-tech investments and Sanlam, one of South Africa's leading financial institutions. More recently HBD Venture Capital, founded by Mark Shuttleworth, injected some additional funding in order to help the company market its capabilities outside of its native country with the Gulf region being a key market for them. According to recent research by Telecoms Trends International, the number of m-commerce users will rise to over 1,67 billion users in 2008 from just 95 million in 2004.
Fundamo's key customers include MTN Africa and Standard Bank, whilst its partners include Gemalto, the merged Gemplus/Axalto entity, MasterCard, Nasdaq-listed S1 Corporation, Total Transaction Mobility, a subsidiary of the Nonco Financial Services Group and Verean, a global mobile solutions provider that focuses on the Asia Pacific ring region.
Fundamo are but one of many South African-based software development companies who are exploiting their locally developed solutions outside the borders of South African. We have a fine record in this field but the education of the global community to this fact still needs emphasising and re-iterating time and again.
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