While African millionaires and billionaires like Patrice Motsepe may
have more money than most of us can ever dream of, but there are a
handful of young Africans in their 20s and 30s who have built businesses
and amassed enviable million-dollar fortunes
Mark Shuttleworth, South African
Age: 38
Founder, Knife Capital
When Shuttleworth was 22, he founded Thawte, a digital certificate and internet security company which he sold to VeriSign for $575 million in 1999, when he was 26. Shuttleworth used a fraction of his proceeds to start HBD Capital (now called Knife Capital), a Cape Town-based emerging markets investment fund.
Age: 38
Founder, Knife Capital
When Shuttleworth was 22, he founded Thawte, a digital certificate and internet security company which he sold to VeriSign for $575 million in 1999, when he was 26. Shuttleworth used a fraction of his proceeds to start HBD Capital (now called Knife Capital), a Cape Town-based emerging markets investment fund.
HBD has made a series of successful exits
including Fundamo, a mobile financial services company which was
acquired by Visa for $110 million in 2011; and csense, which was
acquired by GE Intelligent Platforms the same year. Shuttleworth also
founded and funds Ubuntu, a computer operating system which he
distributes as free open source software. Shuttleworth has a net worth
north of $500 million.
