South African Tech Startup Snapt Shutdown Amid Financing Shortage

Snapt, a South African provider of application delivery controllers (ADCs) and load balancing software, has closed its doors due to what appears to be financing shortage. 

Snapt, which debuted in South Africa in 2012, established a distinct sales and marketing branch there in 2015 to handle the increasing demand.

It said in 2015 that 85% of its clientele was located in the US and then went on to set up a separate sales and marketing division there. At the time, the company’s CEO, Dave Blakey, said that it wanted to grow at the rate of 1,000% annually.

According to reports, the business had 10,000 consumers in 50 different countries by 2017. In 2014 and 2015, it saw a year-over-year growth of 400%.

More recently, in May 2022, Snappt introduced Snapt Nova, an AI-powered security package designed to aid over 3.9 million Kubernetes users in optimising application production.

Snapt is out of money despite all these accomplishments.

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Snapt funding so far before financial shortage  

Convergence Partners led a $1 million seed financing in 2016 that totalled over $4 million, and a $3 million Series A investment in 2018 totalled over $4 million.

In order to fund significant research & development initiatives as well as its international sales and marketing objectives, which included expanding its US presence and global channel network, the company obtained $3 million in Series A financing in December 2018. 

Now that the company has ceased looking for funding, it seems like it is at a loss for alternatives. It sent a message to customers informing them of its closure and offering help so they may cease using its services.

“Over the past 12 months, Snapt has been in a growth phase of its business, driven by increased demand for our products from large enterprise customers,” the company said.

“Given recent unforeseen events outside of our control, Snapt has been left with no option but to cease operations immediately, as we believe this is in the best interests of our staff and clients. We are extremely saddened by this, especially given the recent growth of the business, and grateful for all the amazing interactions we’ve had with our clients over the years.”

At the moment, Snapt’s current software licences for Nova, NovaSense, and Aria cannot be purchased. At the end of this month, the Nova platform will be shut down, and all Nova systems will stop operating. 

The support services for Aria will also be halted. Before that, Snapt said it will continue to serve all of its current customers and platforms despite the financial shortage.

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