Co-founder and CEO of Lynkwise | Partner at Acorn Finance
It seems unbelievable that there is a billion-dollar industry in Africa that very few people know of, and remains largely un-digitised! In 2019 we co-founded Lynkwise, a Namibian based, African focused Fin-tech, to be the first ones to change this.
We won the award for the “most innovative Start-up in Southern Africa” for 2022 at AfricaArena, the largest and most prestigious start-up event on the African continent. Microsoft also selected us as 1 of 12 start-ups in Africa to be part of their first ever accelerator and are an on-going partner of ours. In September 2022 American Billionaire Tim Draper also selected us as one of the seven most exciting start-ups in Africa and flew us to Rome to meet him and his colleagues.
The executive team consists of Ryan, Sean and Johan Vos (technical Co-founder and software developer). Ryan (Co-founder and CEO) is responsible for the strategic planning, with a focus on expansion throughout Africa and additional revenue sources. He also oversees the sales and financial functions. Sean (Co-founder and CEO) is responsible for the oversight and strategic planning of the Lynkwise software with a key focus on user experience and technical requirements of clients.
Many blue collar workers in Africa typically don’t qualify for traditional lending and insurance products in the regulated financial services market perpetuating finance exclusion throughout the continent. However, though payroll deductions they get access to the regulated financial services market providing the opportunity for improved financial well-being. We have successfully digitized this payroll deduction industry through the launch of the Lynkwise Payroll Deduction Management Platform and, in doing so, are making a positive impact towards financial inclusion in Africa.
Our platform is currently being used by several large pan-African financial institutions including Old Mutual, Sanlam, Metropolitan, FNB and Nedbank.
We both have a strong entrepreneurial drive and have always known that we would like to start our own business. Based on this, it has always been clear that the CA(SA) qualification would provide the perfect platform to achieve our goals. It took hard work and patience, but after many years of operating as successful Chartered Accountants and running our own practice, we were able to leverage our CA(SA) qualification in order to help convince the notoriously skeptical financial industry to make use of our Lynkwise Platform and develop it into a successful startup that is scaling across Africa.
It is also extremely important to us to give back to the community is all types of ways. Our company gives out bursaries to aspiring CA’s and we assist startups through our work with the Namibian Business Angel Network. We also support various orphanages throughout Namibia directly and through our client engagements.
