Startup Failures in South Africa

The African mobile lending infrastructure raised $120M and discovered that lending to the mobile-first poor never scales profitably

Mine safety AI that missed the one alarm that mattered — and lost everything.

3,000 fishers digitized, zero path to commercial sustainability.

South Africa's carpooling dream died on the altar of car culture and load-shedding.

A global giant's Africa SME cloud product killed by infrastructure reality and corporate consolidation.

South Africa digital remittance startup targeting intra-Africa corridors that raised $5M before World Remit and Mama Money made the standalone model unviable.

Cape Town's recruitment automation SaaS found South Africa's enterprise HR budget too small

South African BNPL pioneer sold to Zip Co at discount as local market proved too small

SME payments champion squeezed by global card networks

South African crypto exchange acquired by Digital Currency Group that lost direction after the 2022 crypto crash gutted emerging market volumes.

South African BNPL startup raised $12M but SARB tightened credit regulation before scale was achieved

South African NFT profile picture project that launched at peak NFT mania and collapsed with the market.

Estonian founders raised $100M to give underbanked South Africans car subscriptions — then global interest rates destroyed the economics

South African P2P car insurer with AI underwriting collapsed on claims losses

South African AI identity verification platform hit TAM ceiling and lost to global API providers

B2B wholesale marketplace for South African informal retailers — outcompeted by Wasoko

South Africa's neobank beaten by bankers who built their own

South African retail vision AI trapped between a small formal market and global competition

Cape Town fintech enabling informal traders to sell airtime acquired at deep discount after decade of effort

South African premium kitchenware e-commerce brand acquired by Woolworths and stripped of independence.

South African click-and-collect network ran out of growth as courier giants undercut

Digital voucher distribution platform for informal retailers stalled as mobile money bypassed the category

South Africa fintech second wave: TymeBank (2M+), Discovery Bank, Bank Zero, Capitec (25M), Yoco (SME), and Stitch all competing in a 60M population