by TINTSWALO BALOYI
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – THE adoption of the internet of things (IoT) in South Africa is set for an increase following an investment in a rapidly growing the sector.
Karoobos Investments and Partner Elite have invested an undisclosed amount but said to be significant in IoTdc.
This partnership will provide support to scale IoTdc.
While a majority of IoTdc’s clients are large solution integrators and IT resellers predominantly in the telecom industry, investors are excited about this partnership because IoTdc is also supporting and enabling a large number of smaller IoT solution providers.
“IoTdc supports and provides input components and software technology to these smaller businesses,” said Allon Raiz, Chief Executive Officer of Raizcorp.
Partner Elite is a division of Raizcorp.
“At the moment, IoT is a growth industry and for it to become successful there is a need to ensure that the IoT ecosystem is vast and supported,” Raiz said.
Ewald Fourie and Tiaan Coetsee, co-directors of IoTdc, had been looking for a partner to help them scale for some time.
“We did a lot of due diligence on existing Partner Elite partners before concluding this deal” Fourie said.
Coetsee said the partnership was already making an impact.
“Even before the ink was dry on our contract, the support was pouring in – market access, HR and financial support to name a few,” Coetsee said.
Nhlanhla Madalane, Karoobos Investments director, said when looking to invest in IoTdc, the first and most important criteria was to look at the quality of the entrepreneurs.
“Once I was comfortable with that, I looked at the business case. In this instance, both boxes were ticked very quickly,” said Madalane.
According to technology market research firm, IDC, the use of IoT in South Africa is expected to grow by 14 percent yearly to 2025.
IoT adoption is also predicted to increase exponentially across a range of sectors like the telecommunications, manufacturing, logistics, transport, agricultural and government sectors.
– CAJ News