{"id":91874,"date":"2015-06-29T11:29:04","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T09:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=91874"},"modified":"2015-06-29T11:29:04","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T09:29:04","slug":"south-african-entrepreneurs-win-big-in-branson-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/91874\/south-african-entrepreneurs-win-big-in-branson-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"South African entrepreneurs win big in Branson competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two South African-born entrepreneurs will share a \u00a31 million (R19.3 million) prize after winning the Virgin Media Business Pitch to Rich 2015 competition.<\/p>\n<p>UK-based Jeff Paterson and Oliver du Toit were one of three winners for their startup business, Fourex, which aims to revolutionise the currency exchange sector, using self-service machines that will exchange both coins and notes from almost any country in the world for cash.<\/p>\n<p>Fourex beat over 2,500 entries, joining Kino-mo, and JustPark as overall winners. chosen by a panel of expert judges led by Sir Richard Branson, co founder of Virgin Group.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kino-mo,<\/strong> a hi-tech advertising media developer which aims to make holograms an affordable and available solution, won best<strong> Startup<\/strong>, while <strong>JustPark<\/strong>, an app and website that gives drivers access to over 150,000 parking spaces by connecting them with property owners looking to make money from their underused spaces, won the <strong>Grow<\/strong> title.<\/p>\n<p>Fourex won under the title: <strong>New Things<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Along with the business accelerator prize fund, the winners will receive mentoring and marketing support from Virgin Media Business.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bsWXQPwZMv4\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Fourex makes its money by buying and selling currency into the market. &#8220;We buy your currency, and by selling it to someone else, we make our profit,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>Users can exchange any amount between \u00a31 and \u00a31000 at a Fourex kiosk.<\/p>\n<p>The group&#8217;s founders told <a href=\"http:\/\/www.capetalk.co.za\/articles\/3245\/sa-born-entrepreneurs-take-the-lead-in-competition-to-pitch-to-richard-branson?utm_content=buffer17921&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer\" target=\"_blank\">Cape Talk radio station<\/a> that Fourex has already won a contract to install kiosks in the London Underground, while they have also raised R12 million through crowd-funding via 450 individual donations.<\/p>\n<p>Fourex is also in talks with major currency exchange companies about implementing its product in airports around the world.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on South African startups<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/88692\/car-sharing-service-to-launch-in-sa\/\">Car sharing service to launch in SA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/77267\/garmin-acquires-sa-startup-ikubu\/\"><strong>Garmin acquires SA startup iKubu<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/89316\/south-african-startups-average-r3-million-in-investment\/\"><strong>South African startups draw millions in investment<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two South African born entrepreneurs will share a \u00a31 million (R19.3 million) prize after winning the Virgin Media Business Pitch to Rich 2015 competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":91876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[10054,26],"class_list":["post-91874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-fourex","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91874"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91898,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91874\/revisions\/91898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}