Alphawave offers business guidance with a deep technical understanding.
Because we are also engineers, our mindset aligns with entrepreneur technologists to help them build a business – we understand what they are doing, why technical timelines unfold in particular ways and can grasp potential tech issues – unlike traditional VCs who generally only really understand the business side.
Going further than just business
We have experience in how to find markets, how to do business development and how to grow teams of tech people.
“Mostly the people we invest in are the best in their field, so they know their technical field much better than we do. However, we have experience in how to find markets, how to do business development and how to grow teams of tech people,” explains Alphawave CEO, Frans Meyer. “Fortunately, Alphawave people are tech people, so we understand the challenges of developing technology and, in some cases, we do have experienced software developers, electronic design engineers and AI engineers who can give advice to new companies when they have to do design and development in commercial environments in those fields”.
Creating the space to develop
Bytefuse CEO Greg Newman says that Alphawave has made a difference in helping the company determine where to focus, and in providing a supporting structure that covers accounting, tax, and other administrative functions, so that we can concentrate on product and engineering. “In developing our current key solutions, Maski and Quebit, Alphawave’s capital offer provided the runway to explore different technologies and approaches to solving real-world problems, and to hire a strong technical team around that,” he says.
Callbi Managing Executive Gert Fourie had a similar experience: “Alphawave brought something most early-stage capital can’t: operators who had already built and scaled tech businesses themselves. Having that sounding board for product decisions, hiring, and going to market in the first few years was as valuable as the funding itself. The way we took our ASR engine to market owes a lot to that backing,” he says.
Bringing the ‘soft infrastructure’
CUBECOM chair Johann de Swardt says that his team had already been a division of another company for 17 years before they broke away and encountered Alphawave on their journey towards independence. “By the time we joined Alphawave, we were essentially only the ‘technical core’ of the business. To use an analogy, we had built the inside of the house, but everything around it still needed to be created,” he says.
Alphawave’s greatest contribution was therefore its business expertise, guidance and principles.
“Alphawave’s greatest contribution was therefore its business expertise, guidance and principles – the foundation, walls and roof of the house – and they provided the support, funding, time, business knowledge and encouragement needed to transform strong engineering into a scalable company”.
Network of support
Neil Rankin was one of the four university professor founders of Predictive Insights and is now CEO.
Their focus on helping us build sales pipelines, offering marketing support and helping us manage tax and audits has allowed us to focus on developing the product itself.
“The company was founded in 2017 and we found our way to Alphawave in February 2018, who – aside from providing seed capital – also helped us develop the ‘soft infrastructure’ required to run a company,” he says.
“Their focus on helping us build sales pipelines, offering marketing support and helping us manage tax and audits has allowed us to focus on developing the product itself. Having the opportunity to collaborate with other companies that Alphawave is supporting has given us the forum to discuss challenges we’re experiencing and how everyone’s experience and expertise can be brought to bear to help each other grow”.
Enabling growth that’s integral
Meyer says that Alphawave’s critical contributions to the companies under its wing will always be capital, incubation scaling and business development, matching tech expertise to markets and making sure products of value are developed. “In every company, we are also involved by offering advice on different aspects that need to be introduced during different growth phases in terms of people, processes, finances and the like,” he says.
“We know that great technical teams which work well together can get a lot done, but we are able to either help bring in a person with a centre of gravity on the business side to help it grow, or assume the role ourselves. That means understanding the market, the clients and then coming up with ideas or products based on the tech that these clients or markets need and want – that’s how the businesses we support, grow”.
It’s never too early or too late to partner with Alphawave
Alphawave has delivered success and scale to exceptional technology founders and their businesses. The secret is playing to everyone’s strengths. Ours is the right approach, tools and structure. While theirs is to take advantage of all the support to focus on innovation. Together, we can reach the milestones that matter.