Serial Internet entrepreneur Vinny Lingham, the Co-founder and CEO of Civic – an identity protection and management solution – startup and Co-founder of Silicon Cape will speak at DEMO Africa 2016, that will take place from the 22nd to 26th August 2016 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Mr. Lingham is founder-CEO of Gyft and Yola Inc. – companies he has since exited. Lingham founded incuBeta, an investment holding company that engages in the ownership, management, and support of online marketing companies in various stages of development, with offices in the US, UK and Cape Town.
In 2003, he founded Clicks2Customers, a subsidiary of incuBeta providing search engine marketing software and services. He served as CEO of both companies. In 2007, Lingham founded Yola, a proprietary web development platform for individuals, small businesses and organizations. To date, Yola has received over $25 million in funding from Johann Rupert’s Reinet Fund.
Lingham later partnered with Justin Stanford and co-founded Silicon Cape Initiative, a South African-based organization which aims to turn the Western Cape into a high-tech startup hub.
In July 2014, Lingham made headlines when he sold Gyft, an online gift card service, to First Data, a big player in the payment technology space, for a “rumoured” US$54m-plus. Gyft pioneered the concept of a mobile wallet for gift cards.
Lingham founded Gyft in January 2012. Prior to acquisition, the company raised $6m in total funding from several investors including Google Ventures, Canyon Creek Capital, The Social+Capital Partnership, Karlin Ventures, David Sacks and Hass Portman.
In 2014 Lingham also became one of the dragons in the first season of South Africa’s Dragons’ Den along with Lebo Gunguluza, Vusi Thembekwayo, Polo Leteka Radebe and Gil Oved.
Some of the global awards he has won include Top 500 CEO’s in the World, 2015, World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders, 2009, Endeavor High Impact Entrepreneur, 2006 and Top Young ICT Entrepreneur in Africa Award, 2006.
At DEMO Africa, Lingham will share insights into his entrepreneurial journey and his secret sauce of creating winning companies
