VENTURES AFRICA – Africa has a new class of
millionaires. Many are not members of dynasties and few are into the
traditional generators of African wealth – resource mining and
exploration or brokering of lucrative government contracts. They have
grabbed new tools and made new friends. With technology in one hand and
foreign investment in the other, these millennials are building business
that will diversify Africa’s economic landscape. They also aren’t doing
too badly for themselves. Here are 10 “new millionaires” under 40 whose
ideas are both transforming the continent and making them fabulously
wealthy.
MARK SHUTTLEWORTH, 39, SOUTH AFRICA
Mark Shuttleworth, South Africa’s tech wunderkind, is the founder of
Canonical Ltd, the developer of Ubuntu, the world’s largest, free,
open-source operating system with over 20 million users. Shuttleworth
shot to fame in 1999 when Thawte, an internet security company he
founded four years earlier, at the age of 22, was acquired by VeriSign
for $575 million.
Shuttleworth used funds from the buyout of his first company to start
a Cape Town-based emerging markets investment fund, HBD Capital (now
Knife Capital). The fund eventually sold several companies for
nine-digit sums, including Fundamo, which Visa paid $110 million for in
2011. He also founded an eponymous foundation that financially supports
innovative social entrepreneurs, and was South Africa’s first man to
shuttle to space.
ASHISH THAKKAR, 31, UGANDA
Ashish Thakkar is a co-founder and CEO of the Mara Group. The Group,
with interests in real estate, manufacturing, technology, renewable
energy and financial services, has over 7,000 employees across 19
countries and an annual turnover in excess of $100 million.
Entrepreneurship for him, like his billionaire mentor and friend Richard
Branson, started at an early age. Thakkar was just 15 years old when he
set up his first business: importing and selling computer hardware and
software in Uganda. Thakkar says the loss of his parents’ wealth in the
1993 Rwandan genocide spurred him to start a business. Over the years,
his personal worth has climbed over $290 million.
VINNY LINGHAM, 34, SOUTH AFRICA
Lingham, one of South Africa’s leading tech exports, is an internet
entrepreneur and serial founder, with several companies under his belt.
In 2003, he founded incuBeta – a global online marketing investment
holding company – and Click2Customers – a successful search engine
marketing company with offices in Cape Town, Los Angeles and London.
Presently, Click2Customers generates an annual revenue of about $100
million. Lingham, who now lives in San Francisco, competes on the global
scene and has, over the years, built quite an empire, with
multi-million dollar companies including Lingham Capital, Yola Inc
(formerly Synthasite), Gyft and more. Linghman sits on the boards of
ChessCube, SkyRove, and Personera and previously served on marketing
advisory boards for internet giant, Yahoo, and Nasdaq-listed,
ValueClick.
ROLAND AGAMBIRI, 39, GHANA
A visionary and inspiring youth advocate, Roland Agambiri is the
group chairman of AGAMS GROUP and the founder and CEO of the
much-celebrated electronics manufacturer, rlg Communications. His ascent
is a study in determination. After earning a Bachelor’s Degree in
Business Administration, Agambiri established Roagam Links Ghana in
March 2001 as a mobile phone repair outlet. It later became rlg, the
pioneer indigenous computer and mobile phone plant and technology
institute in Ghana and the West African sub-region. Agambiri has since
expanded the company’s presence to China, Gambia and Nigeria – where it
established a $20-million assembly plant – and Dubai, the location of
its new global headquarters. The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre’s
Ghana Club 100 previously christened rlg as the Fastest Growing Company
in Ghana, the Leader in Ghana’s ICT Sector and the Best Entrant to the
Club 100.
SIM SHAGAYA, 38, NIGERIA
From computer programming at the tender young age of 10 to leading
Google Africa, over the years Sim Shagaya has established three
multi-million-dollar Nigerian digital companies: eMotion, Nigeria’s
first digital ad company which he now chairs; dealdey.com, the country’s
largest deal site; and Konga.com, Nigeria’s second-largest ecommerce
player and which has received over $15 million in funding from investors
including Naspers and Kinnivik. While 10 percent of Konga’s shares are
distributed among employees, Shagaya controls a majority stake of at
least 51 percent. Prior to his successful string of entrepreneurial
strides, Shagaya spent two years as the personal executive to the
current chairman of Etisalat Nigeria, Hakeem Bello- Osagie. Shagaya
plans to spend 20 years of his life revamping local retail and building a
sustainable retail network in Nigeria, just as Jeff Bezos did with
Amazon.
ABASIAMA IDARESIT, 34, NIGERIA
Abasiama Idaresit is a firm believer in the possibilities of the
internet for Africa. He is the founder and CEO of Wild Fusion, a
Nigeria-based digital marketing agency with a presence in Nigeria, Ghana
and Kenya. It has a clientele of blue-chip companies including Pepsi,
Unilever, Diamond Bank and Vodafone. Upon completion of his Information
Systems and Management course at the London School of Economics in 2008,
Idaresit returned to Nigeria to start Wild Fusion. This was before the
rise of Twitter, when internet advertising was still a very unpopular
idea in the country. After eight months with little to no revenue
generated, Idaresit’s $250-money-back trial service increased a
reluctant client’s earnings by 100 percent in three months. So stunning
was the result that Google adopted it as an internet marketing case
study. The company became Google Adwords’ first local certified partner
and was named Nigeria’s best digital agency in 2011. In 2012, having
received no external funding, it recorded an annual turnover of $6
million. Idaresit, who has been featured on CNN among other media
outlets, says he has always loved the internet and wants to see it
change Africa.
MIKE MACHARIA, 38, KENYA
Michael King’Ori Macharia is the Group CEO of Seven Seas Technologies
(SST), one of East Africa’s leading technology solutions companies. As a
qualified chartered accountant, Mike founded SST in Kenya in 1999 at
the age of 25, having risen to the post of sales manager after three
years working at a then-leading IT firm, Comtech Systems. From a team of
just five at its inception in 1999, the SST Group currently has more
than 100 permanent employees in East, West and Southern Africa, as well
as Portugal, and generates annual revenues of around $50 million.
NIC HARALAMBOUS, 29, SOUTH AFRICA
Nic Haralambous is the founder of ForeFront Africa, a leading African
mobile strategy firm. He moved from print media, through online and
finally into mobile media production and management, also working as the
head of the mobile division at the Mail & Guardian and product
manager of The Grid, Vodacom SA’s location-based social network, before
reaching where he is now. In August 2012, Haralambous sold Motribe, the
mobile internet company which he had co-founded, to Mxit, Africa’s
largest social network. In 2009, he featured on GQ’s list of the top 30
men in media, while in 2010 he was a finalist in the Men’s Health Best
Men Awards. He was also selected by the Mail & Guardian as one of
the 200 young South Africans to take to lunch.
PATRICK NGOWI, 28, TANZANIA
Tanzania’s business celebrity, Patrick Ngowi, is the founder and
chairman of Helvetic Group of Companies, the fastest growing network and
equity holders in renewable energy companies across East Africa. The
Group’s flagship subsidiary, Helvetic Solar, which he founded at the age
of 22, provides renewable energy solutions for clients ranging from the
Tanzanian government to the United Nations, raking in $8 million in
revenues. In 2013, the company was awarded the Fastest Growing and
Number One in Tanzania’s Top 100 Mid-Sized Companies Survey. Ngowi also
sits as a board member and advisor to several local and multi-national
companies in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. His non-profit social
initiative, Light For Life Foundation, provides free solar power to
women in rural Tanzania.
JASON NJOKU, 32, NIGERIA
Jason Chukwuma Njoku is one of Nigeria’s leading voices on ecommerce.
In 2010, with a $150,000-investment from his friend Bastian Gotter,
Njoku co-founded iROKO Partners, currently the world’s largest
distributor of African entertainment. In 2011, the Group received an
$8-million investment from US-based hedge fund, Tiger Global. This same
year it posted an annual revenue of $1.3 million from one of its
subsidiaries, iROKO TV. Njoku says the unit’s current earnings have
surpassed the 2011 figures. He plans to transform the distribution
empire to a $100-million conglomerate over the next nine years.
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