Transformative investment holding company Kagiso Capital has invested R100-million in Stellenbosch-based specialised technology investment group Alphawave Group, which is focused on the Internet of Things (IoT).

The Alphawave Group’s 12 businesses traverse technologies from sensor technology, electronics, software development for virtual and augmented reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence. It has expertise, proven over the last 25 years, to support and build successful commercial technology companies, Kagiso and Alphawave note in a media statement.

The capital can accelerate the current Alphawave businesses and help it to bootstrap potential new businesses as opposed to growing organically, says Alphawave CEO Frans Meyer.

"It allows us to attract top talent more aggressively and find technical people with sound engineering ethos and unique, internationally competitive skills in the Internet of Everything domains we specialise in."

Before the national lockdown in South Africa, Alphawave had multiple investment companies talking to it, but it was not actively looking for funding. The group generates cash from established businesses in its portfolio to invest in new ventures.

"This is how we started Skynamo and Inrange, which are our latest technology ventures now expanding rapidly on the international stage," adds Meyer.

Earlier this year, Alphawave Group announced a significant investment from US-based Five Elms Capital into one of its subsidiaries, Skynamo, which is one of the largest investments in recent years within the South African venture capital context.

"This is not a broad-based black economic-empowerment deal, it is a strategic investment decision. Alphawave is a South African firm creating global solutions to solve complex problems and puzzles," says Kagiso CEO Kgotso Schoeman.

"We want to rapidly impact innovation in this country and we think Kagiso's interest and contribution on strategy, together with Alphawave’s experience and skills, can have profound effects, drawing talent from the broader demographics of our country into internationally competitive science and engineering firms.

"Alphawave will maintain its independence and team culture, while we get to be partners in developing South African ideas that can be taken to a global market," says Schoeman.

"Our interest is about a clear end-game; a long journey to establish something of real value - local innovation, with local talent, that we export and can claim as ours. This is how we should be approaching business in South Africa where we complement each other," says Kagiso COO Lebogang Mosiane.

The deal was closed on March 30, a few days after lockdown Level 5 was implemented in South Africa. Alphawave Group’s 140 engineers and computer scientists integrate depth of problem-solving across a wealth of IoT themes and capabilities with two decades of experience, strategically incubating internationally scalable businesses for growth and profitability.