Capitec-backed Imvelo Ventures invests in South African municipal services platform
South African venture capital firm Imvelo Ventures, founded by Capitec Bank and Empowerment Capital Investment Partners, have invested in Acumen Software, the company that is revolutionising the interaction between South Africans and their municipal service providers.
Funding from Imvelo, who identifies and funds promising South African small and medium enterprises (SMMEs) in the broad spectrum of financial technology, and Sappi’s Andzani Ventures, has enabled the development of My Smart City, a platform for city residents to report service delivery issues, track reported matters, and mobilise fellow community members.
The My Smart City platform has already been integrated into the City of Cape Town’s call management system and intends connecting to all municipal systems to enable the automation of information flows from city residents.
Johannesburg and Cape Town are the first two cities with access to phase one of the free mobile and desktop-based platform that allows citizens to report potholes, monitor power or water outages, communicate with local municipal officials, raise a petition, and much more.
“My Smart City is giving South Africans a voice to see the resolution of service delivery issues and to allow them to view issues and log incidents, prioritise them and connect the right service providers to resolve them. We believe that the platform has the potential to Uber-ise service delivery by putting the power in the hands of the residents who use the platform. In time, the platform will also create jobs for thousands of citizens and private contractors,” says Joao Zoio, chief executive officer and co-founder of Acumen Software.
Where the platform has not been granted access to interface with municipal systems, Acumen Software’s dispatch centre team will become the conduit between citizens and their municipalities to ensure that all issues are appropriately logged and tracked.
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