SA tech start up, Velvet Technologies, is continuing with its strategy to provide small businesses in rural communities with affordable m-commerce solutions.
The mobile application and software development start-up provide solutions which include payment solutions, point of sale solutions and data analysis and gathering. Director and owner of the Velvet Technologies, Breyten Rooiland says that the company had been providing software to some companies in Africa and in South America, but was eyeing expansion into African rural communities after a three-year self-funded success in the industry.
"Our strategy is to provide small businesses in rural communities with solutions that will enable them to grow and in return enable us to participate in that growth. We are expanding our reach in these developing countries and communities by physically being present in the communities and understanding their issues. Attending events like the Global Enterprise Network, Global Enterprise Congress, and NSBC Summit became part of our strategy by allowing us to engage with these small businesses, SME developers, and incubators operating in the markets concerned," he says.
Being a self-funded company with absolutely no support other than the support of the communities in which the company was doing its research and development in presented its own challenges for Rooiland and the company, "At first SA was not open to our solutions as many banking institutions showed us the door with our velvetPAY payment solution. So over the past 3 years we have gathered support from entities outside of the banking industry supporting our solutions and ideas as a company. We are currently enjoying interest in our solutions locally as well as the rest of the globe especially in South America, West Africa, and the US."
He further confirms that the company has been spending time doing research and development in South America and West Africa and this helped the team understand that the same method cannot always be applied adding that some of the African countries which the company provides technology to do not have the infrastructure that SA has and this meant they had to adapt technology to those countries and markets.
"I personally grew up in a family where my grandfather operated a small community general dealer, and I always believed that if he had the appropriate resources to his disposal the business could have been bigger and reached an area larger than the area of the community only. This was the same sentiment when we were spending time in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro doing our research and development for our Velvet POS solution. We thus decided not to make use of first world solutions for developing countries and communities but rather focused on developing solutions taking into consideration the issues dealt with by societies in these developing countries, this is the inspiration behind our expansion."
The company says part of its overall strategy is to make an impact in small business in South Africa and connect businesses within the country to become part of a mobile trading marketplace. "We are working day and night to ensure that we reach our long term goal of becoming one of the leading financial technology companies originating out of Africa. A big highlight for us as a company is being self-funded and still be able to develop a mobile payment solution that can assist consumers and retailers in communities to transact with each other in a safe and cost effective manner, concluded.
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