Britegaze, a new entrant in the artificial intelligence (AI) space, has completed its feasibility on the launch of Britegaze Fund One, which will primarily focus on assisting businesses in the AI space in South Africa and the broader African continent.
“Today, data is being generated at a phenomenal rate driven by the number of Internet users, machines as well as the Internet of things. It is estimated that as of the beginning of 2020, there was approximately 44 zettabytes of data in the digital universe,” says Reshaad Sha, CEO of Britegaze.
Sha recently resigned as CEO of Liquid Telecoms SA.
“On a daily basis, in excess of 2.5 billion gigabytes are generated and that is expected to grow to 463 exabytes per day in 2025. With this data explosion, very little of this data is actually analysed and put to good use,” says Sha.
The company notes there is no way for human beings to even process this volume of data, let alone interpret the results from the analysis of this data.
It points out that this is where AI comes into play, adding that AI companies are developing solutions to process, learn from, react and to a large extent autonomously take decisions based on the data it has ingested.
Britegaze is seeking AI businesses that today have a customer base, but are also keen to explore a growth trajectory that will see them play a role in building solutions around the voluminous data that is generated on a daily basis.
“While we are expecting to work with existing companies in the AI space, we are also going to co-create with those partners solutions that we believe there is sufficient scope to address some large challenges that the telecoms industry is facing today,” says Sha.
Britegaze Fund One has a target of R500 million that it expects to raise over the coming months and while its focus is on target businesses initially in South Africa, there are already some very interesting companies solving complex issues in other parts of the continent that it will also target to assist in their acceleration.
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