With over 15 years of experience, we are one of the industry’s earliest venture studios, renowned not for chasing size, but for consistently delivering profitability. As our Group CEO often emphasises: “Our ambition is not to be the biggest, it’s to be providing high returns to our investors, great support to our founders and sustainable impact to the continent.”

Pioneering Venture Building with Proven Profitability

Established in 2010, we are pioneers in the business. We found, build and fund tech ventures solving key challenges across Africa.

Venture Studio |
Venture Fund

CORE VENTURE STUDIO SERVICES

At the core of our business is a deep drive for innovation. This has sparked the creation of various business segments all tailored to offer incubation, acceleration, connect ecosystems and fund ventures

Product Excellence

MVP design, Prototyping, UI/UX.

Products are built with and grounded in superior design and UX.

Tech & Data Services

BI, Analytics, Platform Engineering.

Talent & Growth

Team Hiring, Go-to-market Execution.

Capital & Financial Ops

Seed Funding, Financial Modelling.

We are experience driven, and strive to build profitable businesses.

Ecosystem & Corporate Access

Corporate Partnerships, Pilot Programs, Open Innovation, Follow-on Investors, business ready and exitable.

MISSION AND IMPACT GOALS

1

IDEATE

Identifying key problem spaces

2

BUILD

Deploying in-house teams for product, design, finance, and talent

3

LAUNCH & FUND

Providing seed capital, follow-on funding pathways

4

SCALE

Leveraging Methys network, corporate and ecosystem ties

5

REALISE

Turning potential into tangible results

STUDIO BUILT VENTURES

Methys Venture Studio builds, funds and accelerates internal projects that become flourishing, high growth businesses. An early-stage venture fund that invests in high growth digital startups in the sectors that we have domain expertise in. Over the course of 10 years, we have established and invested in startups that have lead to the establishment of industry-leading startups.

PayGenius

Launched in 2012, PayGenius is first mobile payment gateway in South Africa, a provider of smart solutions. The PayGenius solution includes payment gateways, switching services and an electronic wallet. Convenience, Mobility and Security are the pillars of our philosophy, and we constantly strive to deliver innovation and exceed customer expectations.

Find Out More

Powertime

Methys developed the first independent m-commerce merchant in South Africa. Powertime provides nearly 7 million South African prepaid electricity customers with smart channels to buy electricity tokens and airtime 24/7. The Powertime service is available via innovative applications on smartphones, mobisite and website. The service incorporates Methys BI expertise to deliver a comprehensive monthly usage dashboard to Powertime's customers.

Find Out More

Energy Intelligence

Built on a combination of Methys' BI technology and Business Performance Management techniques, Methys createdt the Energy Intelligence platform which enables companies to understand and address the optimization of energy consumption. Energy Intelligence's mission is to help residential users, corporate clients, and asset managers to improve their utility management performance by turning their electricity, water, and heat usage into actionable knowledge.

Find Out More

AfricArena

AfricArena is an African tech accelerator that runs Corporate Open Innovation challenges throughout the African continent. While executing their open innovation challenges, they aim to foster the African tech environment by producing a range of physical events that connect entrepreneurs, investors and corporates. AfricArena partners with numerous organisations throughout the continent, organising panel discussions and pitch competitions.

Find Out More

Enrich In Africa Center

The ENRICH in Africa Centre has been developed to strengthen the EU-Africa tech and innovation ecosystems, supporting innovators collaboration, connecting incubators and accelerators, investors, corporates and policymakers with the aim of enabling positive social impact and green business.

Find Out More

The Good Tree

The Good Tree offers rewards management solution for restaurants. It allows users to connect with the customers, collect data and insights to track purchases at the store. It helps local SME's to attract customers and reward them with instant discounts. It provides a payment wallet to manage transactions in the stores. The business was successfully sold to UBU International.

Find Out More

Candystick

Candystick is indeed a South African online platform that serves as a "safe and hassle-free online money box" for various purposes. It allows users to collect money from others for events, charities, group gifts, and crowdfunding. Candystick handles the collection process, making it easy to invite people and receive payments through debit/credit cards, both locally and internationally.

Find Out More

Let's work together

Partner With Our Studio

Our Track Record Speaks for Itself

We don’t just launch companies, we create enduring value, turning ideas into sustainable, revenue-driven businesses.

Years Experience

15

years of venture building expertise

Ventures Built

12

ventures backed from inception to scale

Successful Exits

R5m

in profitable exits

Ventures Supported

110+

ventures provided with strategic guidance and resources

Recurring ARR

$5m

in total annual recurring revenue generated

Return on Investment

x6

capital investment return for our partners

Our diverse team brings a holistic approach to every project we take on.

By making people our focus, we have attracted talented individuals that are dedicated to empowering our clients by building them exceptional solutions that elevate their business. We are developers, designers, analysts, project managers, quality assurers and administrative support staff that value honesty, integrity and excellence.

MEET OUR TEAM

Christophe is a Cape Town-based entrepreneur and early-stage investor. He is a graduate of EDHEC and holds an executive MBA from UCT. With over 10 years of experience and his role as founder and CEO of Methys Group, Christophe has founded over half a dozen tech startup ventures operating in South Africa.

View Christophe's LinkedIn profile here.

Christophe Viarnaud

Founder and Group CEO

Entrepreneur in the tech sector in South Africa, with a background in business (MBA) and engineering (MSc), Sebastien runs a portfolio of startups : Powertime – an online value added services reseller, Energy Intelligence – a utility management company and PayGenius – a multi-currency online payment processor focused on the travel sector.

View Sebastien's LinkedIn profile here.

Sebastien Lacour

CEO of Paygenius & Powertime

Head of Products at AfricArena, fostering Africa's tech growth by connecting startups with investors, managing events, and developing digital platforms. Strong engineering and project management background.

Dan Mabbyalas

Head of Product AfricArena

Gerhard joined the team in 2012 and is now the Operations Director of Methys Professional Services, and CTO of Methys Group. With an engineering background and over 18 years of experience, Gerhard has developed an understanding of complex corporate business, development and IT issues and is able to identify opportunities, create solutions, and meet stringent demands with the processes that Methys provides.

View Gerhard's LinkedIn profile here.

Gerhard van Niekerk

Operations Director - Technology and Professional Services

Nannekie van der Schyff is a people enthusiast with a background in Human Resources specializing in Talent Acquisition and Development over the last 3 years. She is focused on attracting and developing Top talent, retaining, implementing and driving a culture that helps to harness the full power of the most valuable assets – “The People”. Her mission is to cultivate a diverse and high-performing workforce by fostering an inclusive environment that promotes continuous learning and professional growth.

View Nannekie's LinkedIn profile here.