SA Rocks

Vinny Lingham is a South African doing absolutely incredible things on a global scale. He has taken Synthasite from a small South African startup to a global player with 1 000 000 users.

Now Vinny has announced on his blog (and in an email that I received this morning) that his company, Synthasite, has received another round of founding to the tune of $20m.

Straight from Vinny’s blog:

I’m very proud to be able to announce that during what looks like the deepest economic crisis of recent history, SynthaSite’s investors are so confident of our success, that they have increased their investment by a further $20m (R200m). This is testament to the great work that our team have done in building a solid business with a great product. We have also grown our userbase to over 1m from just over 10,000 at the start of last year and we are poised for more radical growth this year.

And the email I received this morning:

Dear Nic,

Today, I’m proud to announce that Reinet Fund has just invested $20 million into SynthaSite, securing our future and enabling us to continue to build our business model and product offering. This is a massive vote of confidence in SynthaSite, and we owe it to each and every one of you. Our future is bright and, with your support, we will continue to make a difference in the world!

When we began building SynthaSite, we sought to create a company whose product would change the lives of millions of people by giving them a voice online. We wanted to provide the opportunity for anyone anywhere to build a website that would achieve their unique goals, from starting a small business to showcasing their achievements.

In 2007, we raised $5 million in venture capital and moved our headquarters to San Francisco, keeping a good portion of our technical team in Cape Town, South Africa. Since then, SynthaSite has grown from just a handful of people to more than 40 individuals in both offices, supporting over one million users. Our support forum is one of the most active on GetSatisfaction’s network, and our recent “Best of SynthaSite” contest attracted more than 1,000 entrants. This level of success could only be achieved thanks to the dedication of both our user community and our staff.

I’m unbelievably excited about the future of SynthaSite and look forward to building on our success in helping you and many others reach their potential online. These past 15 months have just been the beginning…

Thank you for all your support.

Vinny Lingham
Founder and CEO

Now that’s a great way to start the day. Knowing that in an economic downturn your company can not only survive but gain enough confidence in an investor to raise $20m.

My congratulations go out to Vinny and his team.

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South Africans are resourceful, passionate and innovative. We like to create something from nothing, success from adversity and potential from disaster.

This is one of the reasons that I love being here and love South Africa. We are just different.

Finally it seems as though the world is beginning to take notice of this in the online/internet/innovation spheres.

SA Rocks blogged about Springleap in February of this year, we are ahead of the game! And now Springleap.com has been nominated for an Innovation 100 Award. Here’s a snippet from the Springleap Facebook event about the voting:

Some fantastic news!!!

Springleap.com (our proudly South African Initiative to promote SA Artists and rejuvenate the SA Garment Trade) has been nominated for the Innovation 100 Awards.

There are 100 companies that have been nominated in 10 categories… and springleap has been nominated as one of the top 10 innovative companies in the world’s retail category – this means we are right up there going against Amazon and the Apple App Store – and this is your chance to help put South Africa on the map by voting for springleap.com and telling your friends to go there and vote.

Please click on this link to go there and vote for Proudly SA:

http://www.thestandard.com/awards/tis100/show_category/5742

It’s a great time to show our South African unity and pride at something that puts SA on the map right up there with the big boys. A precious moment to show that we are springleaping together.

Facebook your friends, e-mail your pals and support South Africa at the Innovations 100 awards.

So what do you need to do?

It’s simple. Visit the Industry Standard website and VOTE FOR SPRINGLEAP.

And on a parting note it must be noted that Vinny Lingham‘s wonder-product, Synthasite is also up for an award so that makes two South Africans cracking the nod of approval this year.

Head over to the Innovations website and VOTE FOR SYNTHASITE too.

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