Justin StanfordInvestor

South Africa - City of Cape Town, Western Cape

Justin is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist from Cape Town, South Africa. With more than 20 years experience, he is founder, board member, advisor, or investor to a wide variety of companies in the domestic and global technology industry.

Growing up on a farm, his self-taught interest in early personal computers, software and connectivity led to him eventually deciding not to complete high school, to pursue a dream of being an internet entrepreneur at the start of the 2000s. After moving to the city, a few years of failed startup attempts followed, but he ultimately went on to build a pan-African online software company from a garage in the suburbs of Cape Town, in the then emerging cybersecurity industry.

Developing a passion for local startups and entrepreneurs in South Africa, he next took on a bigger challenge, to try and address the development of a local tech startup ecosystem, and the lack of seed capital available to founders. Today he spends his time working on 4Di Capital, a pioneering venture capital firm formed in 2009 as a result. Based in Cape Town and Atlanta, the firm invests in early-stage tech companies from across Africa.

As co-founder of the Silicon Cape Initiative, also created in 2009 as a non-profit community body aimed at catalysing South Africa's nascent ecosystem, Justin believed in the potential for Cape Town as a global technology startup hub. This vision has steadily become reality over the years that have followed, and has since grown to encompass Africa more broadly.

In 2011, he was listed by the Mail & Guardian for the 'Top 200 Young South Africans', in 2013, listed by Forbes for '30 Under 30: Africa's Best Young Entrepreneurs'. For 2014 through to 2018, he was listed by the Institut Choiseul for the 'Choiseul 100 Africa: Economic Leaders for Tomorrow', and in 2017 he was listed in the inaugural '100 Most Influential Young South Africans'.