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Open source firm VoxCroft gets R31m boost

Admire Moyo
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's news editor.
Johannesburg, 19 Nov 2021
Barend Lutz, CEO of VoxCroft South Africa, and Andrea Böhmert, managing partner at Knife Capital, sign the deal.
Barend Lutz, CEO of VoxCroft South Africa, and Andrea Böhmert, managing partner at Knife Capital, sign the deal.

As 2021 comes to a close, venture capital (VC) firm Knife Capital continues to make significant investments in the local tech start-up scene.

Yesterday, open source intelligence company VoxCroft Analytics announced it raised close to $2 million (R31 million) in Series-A funding from Knife Capital.

VoxCroft Analytics is an open source intelligence and risk analytics platform that leverages technology and machine learning in tandem with a global network of analysts, linguists, cultural experts, security professionals and policy experts to discover unique data points, as well as critical patterns, to deliver reliable information and analysis at speed and scale.

This year, Knife Capital has made a number of investments in bourgeoning South African technology start-up companies.

The VC investment manager aims to accelerate the international expansion of African innovation-driven businesses by leveraging knowledge, networks and funding.

In October, Industry 4.0 solution business Stone Three raised an undisclosed amount of expansion funding from Knife Capital.

In July, the VC firm, together with Allan Gray E2 Ventures, pumped money into online home services marketplace Kandua.

VoxCroft Analytics has offices in SA and the US, with a growing global team of 100+ across 13 countries.

Knife Capital’s investment will help the company to expedite strategic expansion plans and respond to the ever-growing market signals for the critical need for fast, reliable, and accurate information and analytics.

“VoxCroft Analytics is excited to work with Knife Capital on our dynamic growth plan,” says Barend Lutz, CEO of VoxCroft South Africa. “The collection and analytical components in open source intelligence are increasingly sophisticated and critical to public and private sector successin anticipating risk faster than ever before.

“With the Knife Capital investment, VoxCroft is poised to redefine how information can be discovered, analysed and delivered across the globe. With their focus on tech, Knife Capital understands how our new form of intelligence tradecraft synthesises machine learning, exclusive machine translation, data science and human wisdom.”

Andrea Böhmert, managing partner at Knife Capital, outlines why the firm considered VoxCroft for investment: “At Knife Capital, we believe in investing in forward-focused companies that solve real problems and can generate great returns for our shareholders. VoxCroft fits the ideal investor model.

“We’ve been tracking VoxCroft for some time and have been impressed by the technology, the team and the depth of insights the company is able to provide to a wide range of customers with diverse intelligence needs.

“What convinced us was their ability to prognosticate the recent insurgency activity in northern Mozambique, and an incredibly fast, accurate and relevant response to the riots in South Africa. Our funding will help the company to make some immediate key strategic appointments and propel growth plans in anticipation of a larger funding round that will be raised in the next six to 12 months.”

Casey Schmidt, VoxCroft Analytics US CEO, adds: “We partnered with Knife Capital for this investment because of their track record in taking companies global and their know-how in leveraging success for companies working with cutting-edge ideas and technology.

“So, the investment and partnership line up well with VoxCroft Analytics’ plans to disrupt the multi-billion-dollar risk analytics industry to increase global security and prosperity. Our experts already meld the best of AI with our other proprietary assets to get the best results for our public and private sector clients.”

Virginia Blaser, VoxCroft Analytics US strategic advisor and former US consul-general to SA, praises this new investment.

“As someone whospent three decades brokering deals in Africa and beyond, and who understandshow new technology adds critical strategic value to governments, developmentorganisations, NGOs and the private sector when it comes to sentiment and riskanalysis, this kind of pivotal investment means the most critical tools will soon be in the hands of more companies and organisations that urgently need them.

“This is an exciting partnership between two world-class organisations, both focused on delivering results.”

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