South Africa, a major technology hub

South Africa continues to grow as a leading technology player and is also home to an active technology start-up community in Cape Town and Johannesburg. A number of international investors have also realised the potential to invest and acquire in South African technology companies.

Technology companies from Johannesburg to Cape Town

Johannesburg is an established hub for technology and is home to a number of large corporates like FNB, M-Net, Dimension Data, Internet Solutions (IS), Eskom, Tarsus and Vodacom. New technology companies based in Johannesburg include:

• ParcelNinja, a cloud-based warehousing and delivery solution which was launched in 2014.
• MoWallet, based in Pretoria, offers digital campaign solutions that work across a number of retailers to help them move stock.

Silicon Cape Initiative encourages ICT ideas and entrepreneurs

The Silicon Cape Initiative is a regional ICT business networking NPO and Community founded by two South African tech entrepreneurs, Vinny Lingham and Justin Stanford. Their ultimate goal is to help foster a high-technology district in the Western Cape.

A history of technology start-ups in Cape Town

• Thawte Consulting founded by Mark Shuttleworth in 1995 and acquired by Verisign in 1999.
• Fundamo, a specialist provider of financial services internationally, was acquired by Visa in 2011.
• Mxit, a now defunct IM service, was acquired for R400 million by World of Avatar in 2011.
• iKubu that developed a low-energy bike radar system called Backtracker was acquired by Garmin in 2015. This is now packaged as Varia Rearview Bike Radar.
• WooThemes, a WordPress theme and plugin provider, who developed WooCommerce was acquired in 2015 by Automattic.
• 22seven was purchased a year after launching by Old Mutual in 2013.
• Amazon Web Services, owned by Amazon.com.

Other technology companies founded in Cape Town include Zando, Takealot, SnapScan, PayFast, OnNet, Raru, Yoco and SweepSouth.

Skills in high demand

Developers are always in high demand at established and new companies – it is just a matter of having the right skills to get hired.

At GoldenRule, we match your skills to the requirements of our clients. We also ensure that our candidates are placed in environments where culture fit is a match.

If you are a developer, browse our jobs section on a regular basis. We are always on the lookout for talented developers – including Java and .NET.

Attractive technology employers in South Africa

MyBroadband recently published an article on the 10 most-attractive tech employers in South Africa – students vs professionals. It was interesting to note that both groups had an almost identical list that included Google, Sasol, Microsoft, Eskom, Transnet and the BMW group. Read the full article on MyBroadband.

You may also want to read our article Software Developers in High Demand.

GoldenRule now in Cape Town

At GoldenRule we have recognised the high demand for developers in Cape Town and have opened an office to streamline our recruiting operations.