mergent South African regtech player Intergreatme has raised over R27-million – R3-million over its original target – in just 72 hours, following its launch last Tuesday of its public equity drive via Uprise Africa’s crowdfunding platform.
Most of the initial 120 individual investors in the raise are Black South African women. Their investment means that close half of Intergreatme’s shareholding is in the hands of Black South African women, positioning the business as a Level One BBEEE contributor.
“In our flagging South African economy, the raise is particularly significant, and proves that crowd funding is a viable platform to raise equity funding for a sound business as well as a vehicle for individual wealth creation,” says Luke Warner, cofounder of Intergreatme.
According to Warner, despite exceeding their original raise target of R24-million, there is still keen interest from the public in the investment opportunity. “Pledges continue to pour in,” he says.
The Intergreatme raise allows individuals with a minimum of R1000 and a maximum R5-million, to invest in the business, which Warner argues, rivals the best in global regulatory technology.
The technology driving both Intergreatme’s identity mobile apps and web-based services, as well as Uprise Africa’s crowdfunding platform, are developed in South Africa by South Africans.
Intergreatme will use the funds raised to create a self-service platform for all size of businesses, while adding additional features and functionality to the Intergreatme app. These include a digital affidavit, trusted connections, QR information sharing, digital ID and drivers’ licenses.
The self-service platform will drive a steady flow of businesses to sign up by themselves, allowing the core operation team to focus on larger potential partners with longer procurement cycles and much larger customer bases. Already the business has signed up a number of local banks and telco’s to manage their RICA and FICA processes.
Integreatme also plans to expand its operations beyond South Africa, through its partnerships, to reach the estimated 5-billion credit active citizens globally.
“This crowdfunding campaign for Intergreatme is a historic moment, and one which we hope will fundamentally change the current funding landscape in South Africa,” says Tabz Qadir, CEO of Uprise Africa.