swiftVEE brings livestock trading into the digital age
This post was written by Michaela Binda, part of the MEST Africa team.
Meet MEST Africa Challenge South Africa winner swiftVEE
In 2016 sixth-generation South African farmer and university student Andrew Meyer teamed up with tech lawyer Russel Luck, and software engineer Alex Molde, to create a technology that would empower small-scale farmers and help the agriculture industry to scale globally while remaining sustainable. The result was swiftVEE, a mobile application that facilitates trading livestock.
South Africa’s swiftVee is more than an app — it’s a solution to some of the worlds biggest problems: resource scarcity, food insecurity, harmful carbon-footprints and global hunger. By connecting livestock agents in multi-billion dollar industries with farmers and traders, the platform leads to higher trade volumes, effectively bringing the agri-sector into industry 4.0. while offering substantial profit margins that facilitate sustainability and social impact.
Shortlisted for South Africa’s top 100 most innovative companies and selected as the only South African company for Google’s 2018 Launchpad, swiftVEE has repeatedly been acknowledged as a leading technology amongst the world’s best companies.
The future for swiftVEE looks bright, as the monetary value of global agricultural markets is expected to increase exponentially in the next 5 years due to rising populations on a consistently depleting land mass. According to Meyer, “There is a growing need to use precious natural resources as efficiently as possible,” which shows a great opportunity to harness technology in order to improve trade.
As one of the four finalists for the MEST Africa Challenge, swiftVEE will compete in a final round of pitch competitions at the MEST Africa Summit, June 18–20 2018, in Cape Town where they will have the chance to win $50k in equity investment. On why they joined the challenge, Meyers says, “We believe that global problems can be solved by scaling global solutions. The livestock trading sector all over the world suffers the same trade inefficiencies. It is ‘begging’ for the technology to bring it into the digital age.”
Want swiftVee to win the MEST Africa Challenge? Share and like our post on social media to upvote the team and route for South Africa to win. Learn more about the MEST Africa Summit and swiftVEE.
Thanks to MEST Africa Summit partners Facebook, MTN, GHL Bank, VC4A and Kenya Airways for helping to bring the MEST Africa Challenge to life!
