This German investor has money to invest in smart SA startups
Ahead of a planned listing in a few years, this investor wants to add more internet companies to his portfolio — and he is excited about SA’s prospects
When Manuel Koser landed a job with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Munich in 2007, he thought he’d made it."When I started working, no-one wanted to go into start-ups," he says. "For me, BCG was the best job I could get."But Koser was shocked when a friend turned down the same job to instead become one of the early "mavericks" of Berlin’s tech start-up scene. The friend’s first attempt failed, but his second resulted in a €10bn company.Koser, who founded some of Africa’s most successful online businesses after moving from Germany to Cape Town in 2011, says he sees similarities between SA now and Berlin in 2007."There were not a lot of jobs there then, and people began starting things on their own," he says."I see that slowly starting here — more and more very smart, dedicated and hard-working people are saying they’ll do their own thing."Koser, the cofounder and MD of Cape Town-based Silvertree Internet Holdings, is scouring SA in search of entrepreneurs who are getting it right...
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