Age
29
Title
Cofounder/COO
Profile
Thulani Masebenza, 28, is the co-founder and CEO of Moya Money, a fintech startup whose mission is to make self-employment sustainable in Africa by making it easier for businesses to manage and pay freelancers.
Since launching in September last year, it has signed up more than 10 businesses as clients who have a network of over 7 500 freelancers.
Moya Money was selected as the first South African startup to participate in the Tenity F10 Global Fintech Accelerator Program, an incubation and fundraising program in Barcelona, Spain, in 2021/2022.
The company was recently selected as one of 29 top emerging startups across the continent to be part of the MultiChoice Africa Accelerator programme in March 2023. In 2019, Thulani co-founded Young Aspiring Thinkers, a non-profit that exposes learners in township high schools to careers through a mentor model.
It has reached over 2 000 learners, has over 150 mentors on its database and has projects with Oracle, Trevor Noah Foundation and Cornell University in the US. Thulani has been invited to pitch on behalf of Young Aspiring Thinkers by the ChangeNow Summit in Colombia (2020) and Paris (2022) after being nominated as one of the top 1 000 impact solutions in education.
List your educational background - qualifications and institutions?
Any awards or achievements in your field?
One childhood memory that has spurred you to such levels of achievement?
I taught myself how to ride a bicycle without trainer wheels. The first time I ever rode a bicycle, I was with my older brother. I got onto the seat and rode down the street without knowing how to steer or use the brakes and crashed into a wall. Luckily I didn’t get injured and, from that moment, I learned what not to do and got back on the seat and tried again. This memory is always a personal reminder for me to keep going and sometimes you don’t have to have it all figured out, you just need to try.
Advice to your younger self?