The Startup Club Podcast

In this episode, we’re thrilled to sit down with Alex Forsyth-Thompson, Founder and CEO of Float, Africa's first card-linked instalment platform that's disrupting traditional BNPL and encouraging responsible spending, by letting shoppers split big-ticket payments over time using existing credit.

Despite reaching an executive position at a leading financial services business in his late twenties - Alex took the leap into tech entrepreneurship after spotting the gap to offer BNPL in a way that better serves the customer and merchant alike.
After 18 months in "the wilderness" (as he describes it) building an MVP, he landed his first equity partner to bring the product to life. In the 3 years since (and with only a team of 10), Float has onboarded 1000 merchants - including big names like Apple, Samsung and The Pro Shop - and has raised meaningful equity, alongside an $11m debt facility from Standard Bank. They also placed top 5 in the Visa’s Everywhere Initiative in 2023. But as expected, there’s always more to the story.
We talk about:
• Alex's upbringing, early career and wanting to start a business of his own.
• Navigating "big" life and career decisions.
• Making the leap from young corporate executive to fintech disruptor.
• Building a disruptive fintech business in crowded sector.
• The Float mission, vision and what comes next.
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Connect with Alex on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-forsyth-thompson-cfa-cfp%C2%AE-6b42a75a/
Connect with Mathew on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathewmarsden/
This episode was brought to you in partnership with our friends at ALX - the world-class tech skills and entrepreneurship accelerator, creating access to training for millions of young people in Africa. For more info, visit alxafrica.com.

The Startup Club Podcast dives into the stories of South Africa's leading tech startup founders and investors, their journeys of innovation, failure, resilience, and triumph and is an initiative of Startup Club ZA - the country’s fastest-growing tech startup and investor community. If you're passionate about entrepreneurship, innovation, solving hard problems, backing the change-makers and co-creating a better country, then you're invited to join us! 🇿🇦
Connect with us:
Website - https://www.startupclubza.com
LinkedIn - https://za.linkedin.com/company/startup-club-za
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/startupclub.za/

In this episode, we're thrilled to sit down with Calvin Collett, Founder and CEO of Melon Mobile - Africa’s first truly digital telco, offering consumers a fully customisable mobile network experience.

Founded in 2022, Melon is disrupting a sector that's long been controlled by a handful of industry incumbents, by combining digital eSim technology, a slick app-first proposition, hyper-customisation and unprecedented pricing - to create an exciting "do-it-yourself" mobile network experience. Coupled with their recently-launched (and highly popular) national billboard campaign, they're fast becoming a hit with consumers and SMEs across the country.
With more than 2 decades of telco experience behind him, a world-class team alongside, and armed with a truly innovative proposition, Melon Mobile are pioneering the next generation of telecoms disruption.

We talk about:
• Calvin's upbringing and early career.
• What makes a great entrepreneur.
• Moving from corporate executive, to intrapreneur, to founder.
• Raising capital and the right team.
• Finding competitive edge in a crowded sector.
• What's next for Calvin and Melon Mobile.
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Connect with Calvin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/calvin-collett/
Connect with Mathew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathewmarsden/
This episode was brought to you in partnership with Injini - Africa's only EdTech specialised accelerator, established on the belief that innovation and technology can help solve the continent’s most pressing education challenges. Injini supports edtech founders through a bespoke acceleration program, they lead education research and advisory support through their ThinkTank and host the country’s annual Edtech week. Visit injini.africa to learn more.

The Startup Club Podcast dives into the stories of South Africa's leading tech startup founders and investors, their journeys of innovation, failure, resilience, and triumph and is an initiative of Startup Club ZA - the country’s fastest-growing tech startup and investor community. If you're passionate about entrepreneurship, innovation, solving hard problems, backing the change-makers and co-creating a better country, then you're invited to join us! 🇿🇦
Connect with us:
Website - https://www.startupclubza.com
LinkedIn - https://za.linkedin.com/company/startup-club-za
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/startupclub.za/

In this episode, we're thrilled to sit down with Paul Kent, Founder and CEO of adumo, the multi-channel payments platform that's helping businesses get paid, boost their customer engagement and keep employees motivated.

The last two decades have seen a radical transformation in South Africa’s payments landscape, evolving from predominantly cash-heavy commerce to a world that's embracing digital infrastructure. The space is both diverse and dynamic, with a mix of traditional banking systems, mobile payment platforms, challenger POS brands and a growing consumer appetite for fintech solutions.
Having built one of the country’s first non-bank card payments businesses, SureSwipe, Paul Kent has witnessed this payments revolution first-hand. Over a decade later, his experience culminated in the founding of Adumo in 2019, which has since grown to serve more than 23 000 active merchants and process over R100-billion in throughput across channels annually. Earlier this month, Adumo received approval from the country's Competition Commission to be fully acquired by listed financial services group, Lesaka Technologies, in a R1.6bn cash/equity deal. For Paul and the Adumo team though, the opportunity remains greater than ever.

We talk about:
• Paul's upbringing, early career and juggling talent over passion.
• Leaning in when opportunity knocks.
• Lessons from building multiple ventures in a competitive space.
• The founder journey from start to acquisition.
• What's next for Paul and the Adumo team.
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Connect with Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulkentsa/
Connect with Mathew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathewmarsden/
This episode was brought to you in partnership with Guardrisk Launchpad - a pioneering initiative that's driving insure-tech innovation through capital and value-added support services to qualifying scaleups. Learn more at the halfway mark of today’s episode - or visit https://grlaunchpad.com.

The Startup Club Podcast dives into the stories of South Africa's leading tech startup founders and investors, their journeys of innovation, failure, resilience, and triumph and is an initiative of Startup Club ZA - the country’s fastest-growing tech startup and investor community. If you're passionate about entrepreneurship, innovation, solving hard problems, backing the change-makers and co-creating a better country, then you're invited to join us! 🇿🇦
Connect with us:
Website - https://www.startupclubza.com
LinkedIn - https://za.linkedin.com/company/startup-club-za
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/startupclub.za/

In this episode, we’re excited to sit down with Idan Jaan, Co-Founder and former CEO of Fundrr, the fintech platform using smart scoring to provide quick and easy business funding to SMEs around South Africa.
In September 2017 - having experienced the funding struggle firsthand - co-founders and best friends, Idan Jaan and Jarred Noche, had the idea to build a platform to solve this important need for other small-medium businesses.
After bootstrapping the business for 18 months, getting investment rejections from over 70 angels, and facing an existential crisis during the Covid 19 lockdown, the founders' resilience and resourcefulness eventually saw Fundrr get acquired by the country's largest SME lender, Retail Capital (now owned by TymeBank).
We talk about:
• Idan's upbringing, early career and starting a family business.
• Building a startup despite lacking the industry experience.
• Persevering through investor rejection.
• Fighting through an existential business crisis.
• The ins and outs of being acquired in South Africa.
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Connect with Idan on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idan-jaan/
Connect with Mathew on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathewmarsden/
This episode was brought to you in partnership with our friends at Aions Creative Technology - South Africa's next-generation venture builder. For more info, visit aions.co.za

The Startup Club Podcast dives into the stories of South Africa's leading tech startup founders and investors, their journeys of innovation, failure, resilience, and triumph and is an initiative of Startup Club ZA - the country’s fastest-growing tech startup and investor community. If you're passionate about entrepreneurship, innovation, solving hard problems, backing the change-makers and co-creating a better country, then you're invited to join us! 🇿🇦
Connect with us:
Website - https://www.startupclubza.com
LinkedIn - https://za.linkedin.com/company/startup-club-za
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/startupclub.za/

In this episode, we’re humbled to sit down with Karidas Tshintsholo, CEO and Co-Founder of Khula!, the pioneering agritech startup dedicated to empowering smallholder farmers through access to markets and financing.
Founded in 2016, the business now enables the trade of thousands of products from hundreds of local & international suppliers on its platform and is changing the face of the agri-supply chain for good.
Khula is a graduate of the Google for Startups accelerator, a past winner of the MTN Business App of the Year and has raised considerable investment from the likes of PepsiCo, AECI and E Squared Investments. But, for the companies’ founder and CEO, the Khula story is one of immense resilience, fuelled by a passion to create sustainable solutions for underserved markets.
We talk about:
Karidas’s humble upbringing and entrepreneurship as survival.
Dropping out of university to become a full-time founder.
Identifying opportunities by deep-diving the problem.
Understanding the country’s agri-supply chain inefficiencies.
Solving for one of the continent’s largest opportunities and convincing the right stakeholders to come along for the ride.
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Connect with Karidas on LinkedIn
/ karidas-tshintsholo-0301bb78/
Connect with Mathew on LinkedIn
/ mathewmarsden

The Startup Club Podcast dives into the stories of South Africa's leading tech startup founders and investors, their journeys of innovation, failure, resilience, and triumph and is an initiative of Startup Club ZA - the country’s fastest-growing tech startup and investor community. If you're passionate about entrepreneurship, innovation, solving hard problems, backing the change-makers and co-creating a better country, then you're invited to join us! 🇿🇦
Connect with us:
Website - https://www.startupclubza.com
LinkedIn - https://za.linkedin.com/company/startup-club-za
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/startupclub.za/