Welcome to Hive
Hive is a private capital vehicle formed by like-minded investors, passionate about Africa, excited by tech and who love investing in, and developing, early-stage African tech businesses.
Investments
Hive has co-invested and strategically aligned initial investment activity with Crossfin Ventures, an investment platform providing pre-seed, seed & pre-series A funding to promising, scalable FinTech start-ups. The underlying portfolio comprises:
TruID is an Open Finance data aggregator. A single API unlocking consent driven access to identity, balance & transactional data from your user’s bank account.
Atura is a chat-based AI customer assistant built for asset management, insurance, and lending industries.
Momint is a blockchain technology company, specialising in putting real world assets and legal contracts on the blockchain.
AskGogo is South Africa’s first and only data free marketplace. Users can buy and sell anything, search for jobs and property and never pay for data.
Building Africa’s Digital Gold Ecosystem. Troygold’s digital account offers you gold bullion-based investing and financial products.
Clicka provides instant access & data insights to teams while equipping businesses with an application for order management.
Pokkit enables users to improve a low credit score, or obtain a credit score if they have no score at all.
Team
James Scott
James thrives on tackling new challenges throughout his 24-year career. Journeying from South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania to the UK & Ireland he anchored his expertise across global markets, transactional banking, payments and investment banking with Citi and Barclays (then Absa). As Absa Corporate and Investment Bank’s Chief Digital Officer, he was instrumental in delivering the continents largest tech project, the separation from Barclays. Over seven years in that role he spearheaded digital product, innovation, design, data and all client & colleague digital channels.
In 2021 James founded two ventures: ThoughtLab and Hive Ventures, focusing on tech startups in Africa. James has a passion for emerging markets and leverages the Hive vehicle to invest and support entrepreneurs across the continent.
Warren Lawlor
Warren is a co-founder and director of Ferryman Capital Partners (Ferryman) a private investment company that collaborates with like-minded partners in various sectors. Ferryman’s key strategic investments include Hangar 18 (which owns several regional and super regional shopping centres in South Africa), India Alpha Capital (a platform of in-country managed Indian investment funds for international investors) and Hive.
A CFA charter holder and non-practising attorney with more than 25 years’ experience in building business, advising and investing, Warren is directly involved in the day-to-day operations of both Hangar 18 (as joint CEO) and Hive where he is responsible, alongside James, for investing in, managing, developing and guiding Hive’s portfolio of early stage African tech businesses.
Gugu Chavarika
Gugu excels in digital innovation in Africa, leveraging her passion to create transformative solutions. Her background includes spearheading product development for the informal economy at a top South African financial firm, where she launched two MVPs targeting low-income sectors.
With experience in remittance solutions across Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa, and armed with an MBA and a published dissertation on digital banking, Gugu blends academic insight with practical expertise at ThoughtLab and Hive Ventures. Here, she identifies cutting-edge trends and technologies, offering strategies that keep clients at the forefront of their industries.
Contact us
For inquiries or collaboration opportunities, feel free to reach out to us. We welcome the chance to explore innovative partnerships, discuss investment opportunities, or address any queries you may have.
Your message has been sent
Hive Ventures 