Kevin Nyango
TechInAfrica – Legazy’s trial to host the Web Summit in South Africa initially never materialized. Legazy was founded by Zuko Tisani who is ranked as the world’s top 350 youngest entrepreneurs under the age of 26 years. Zuko returned to the 2017 web summit after his attempt to purchase a web summit conference in 2016 with a deal worth $ 1million backfired. He had renewed his aim of repurchasing the Web Summit in the 2017 meeting that was held in Lisbon Portugal’s capital. It’s reported that he arrived in Lisbon with the support of Telkom, one of the world’s largest communication company.
Telkom had prepared to support Legazy’s quest of purchasing the web summit deal. However, the deal never went through after the parties failed to agree on the price. Zuko had cemented his relationship with Web Summit earlier in 2016 at Hong Kong where Rise conference was held. It’s during a sumptuous dinner between Zuko, Web Summit Paddy Cosgrave and other technology gurus where the $ 1million deal was offered to him.
After losing on the deal, Zuko never relented on his hopes of bringing the summit to Africa. Instead, Legazy gave it a different approach by taking with them a high delegation from Africa to the technology world. Twenty startups attended the Web Summit.
Amongst those who attended the summit, a good number from South Africa were funded by Standard Bank. Standard Bank is not only a partner to Legazy but also the largest bank in Africa. Zuko made use of his position in the advisory board of the Chamber Of Commerce of both Lisbon and South Africa to fully engage to all startups that were available and this lead to a massive gain by most of the South African entrepreneurs. The significant benefit was the increase in investment to $ 300000. There was a partnership deal that was struck with the Portuguese bank BNI Banco which will ensure the running of South African startup in 2018.
Zuko continues with his pursuit of bringing a major international conference partner for 2018 in South Africa. All this are aimed at bringing in more investors in Africa and improving its ecosystem.
