From over 1600 application from around South Africa, five Cape Town start-ups have won Heavy Chef’s “SA Top 5 Most Exciting Startups of 2018”.
The recognition aims to celebrate innovation and leadership in the SA tech community. SweepSouth, Wala, Zoona, JUMO and Yoco won the 2017 award while 2018 winners include
Lifecheq – a service that helps organise finances to line up with life goals. This starts with a clear plan that includes what investments users should make, what usesr can afford to spend on assets like property and also, important expenses – such as education, and what insurance it makes sense for them to have at that stage of their life.
DataProphet – it develops machine learning solutions to optimize and control manufacturing processes. They provide consulting and product development services to a wide range of industries from finance to legal.
LifeQ – a technology and analytics start-up that combines skills from various disciplines – biomedical engineering, theoretical and experimental physics, systems biology, etc – to understand how physiology, anatomy, behavior and environment interact and how it can improve human health as well as wellness.
Aerobotics – a South African-based agri-startup that helps farmers integrate technology in their farms with drones and data analytics.
Thursdays – a start-up that designs and manufactures lingerie and swimwear for girls C cup and up.
According to Heavy Chef founder, Fred Roed, over 1600 entries were reduced to 960 entries with the final list of nominees sent to 20 judges who selected the five winners.
Roed also said a call for nominations had been announced to over 20 000 of the organisations subscribers at the beginning of November. “We left it intentionally vague, we didn’t want to be specific like ‘the fastest growing or the best or the biggest revenue’,” he explained.
