Locstat Secures $2.3 Million to Take South African AI Innovation Global

When a South African startup starts talking about “graph-powered AI,” you know it’s not another run-of-the-mill analytics firm. Cape Town-based Locstat just raised $2.3 million (EUR 2.5 million) in a pre-Series A round, a vote of confidence that puts it on the map of Africa’s deep tech success stories. The round was led by Portugal Gateway Fund (PGF), with participation from ANZA Capital, and will fuel Locstat’s expansion into the UK and European Union markets.

Founded in 2016, Locstat has been quietly building something rare in Africa’s AI scene, a platform that doesn’t just crunch data, but understands the relationships between it. Its graph-based AI and complex event processing engine helps companies make sense of both real-time and static data. In practical terms, this means financial institutions, telecoms, and logistics companies can detect fraud, map customer journeys, or analyze compliance risks faster and more accurately.

From Cape Town to Europe

Locstat’s story reflects a growing ambition among African tech firms: building at home, scaling abroad. The company has proven its technology in complex environments across Africa, places where data systems are often fragmented or inconsistent, which arguably gives it a competitive edge as it enters more regulated and structured European markets.

The company says the new funding will accelerate its market entry into the UK and EU, focusing on sectors like financial services, telecoms, and logistics. These are industries where real-time data correlation and fraud prevention are critical, and where Locstat’s AI engine could stand out from traditional rule-based or static models.

For co-founders Ryno Goosen (CEO) and André van Zyl (CTO), the round marks not just a financial milestone but validation of their technical approach. The pair’s backgrounds in data analytics, systems design, and defense technology shaped the platform’s architecture, one that blends graph databases, machine learning, and real-time processing.

Why Graph Intelligence Matters

Traditional AI systems often analyze data in isolation, transactions, clicks, behaviors, but graph intelligence takes it a step further. It focuses on how those data points connect. In fraud detection, for instance, it doesn’t just see a suspicious transaction; it maps the web of relationships between accounts, devices, and locations. This kind of relational insight is what global players like Palantir or Neo4j have built billion-dollar businesses around. Locstat is betting that an African-born version of that model can thrive globally.

A Strategic Leap

Expanding into Europe is not a simple play. It means entering markets with tighter data protection rules (GDPR), higher competition, and longer enterprise sales cycles. But it also means access to larger contracts, stronger partnerships, and more stable revenue potential.

The choice of investors is strategic, too. Portugal Gateway Fund has strong EU connections, which could ease Locstat’s entry into European enterprise ecosystems. ANZA Capital, on the other hand, brings regional experience and a track record of backing scalable African tech ventures.

Locstat plans to use this funding to hire technical and sales talent, strengthen its European presence, and scale infrastructure to meet enterprise demand.

What This Means for African Deep Tech

AI startups in Africa often get boxed into consumer applications, chatbots, recommendation engines, or language models, but Locstat’s move proves there’s room for deep infrastructure plays. It also shows that African startups don’t have to wait for validation from Silicon Valley; they can attract European capital directly by solving globally relevant problems.

The company’s next challenge will be translating this momentum into measurable traction, enterprise clients, repeatable revenue, and successful European deployments. With a pre-Series A now secured, eyes will be on how quickly Locstat can turn promise into performance.

If it succeeds, it won’t just be a win for the company, but a proof point for Africa’s growing deep tech ecosystem: that innovation built in Cape Town can compete in London or Lisbon.