Pieter de Villiers is the Co-Founder and CEO of Clickatell, the company that invented the world's first SMS API in 2000 with four lines of code and went on to pioneer chat banking and chat commerce globally. Based in Stellenbosch, South Africa, he led Clickatell to become the first African startup backed by Sequoia Capital, raised over $118 million in total funding, and built a platform that processes roughly 9 billion messages monthly for more than 10,000 enterprise clients across 220+ countries. He also chairs SiMODiSA, a non-profit focused on digital skills development and startup acceleration in Africa.
Shridhar Gupta is the co-founder of LocoNav, a fast-growing fleet management SaaS platform that tracks over 5 million commercial vehicles across 50+ countries. Based between New Delhi and San Francisco, he co-built LocoNav from a 2016 startup into a $75M ARR business by 2025, raising $47M including a $37M Series B from investors like Sequoia Capital India and Quiet Capital. His mission: democratize fleet technology in emerging markets where 70% of 250 million commercial vehicles run with zero tech.
Vickram Saigal is a seasoned product leader and co-founder with over a decade of experience at the intersection of technology, business strategy, and emerging markets. After stints at Bain & Company, the Gates Foundation in Ethiopia, IDEO.org, and Adobe - where he built low-latency identity and privacy systems for Adobe Advertising Cloud - he went on to serve as Head of Product at SaaS Labs (makers of JustCall), leading a 20+ person product and design team as the company scaled to a $42M Series B. In November 2024, he joined Fundamento as Co-Founder to drive product and technology innovation at one of India's leading AI-powered voice agent companies backed by Google, applying his decade of experience across global enterprise software to the frontier of AI-native customer experience.
Vidit Jain is the co-founder of LocoNav, a full-stack AI-powered fleet management platform serving 500,000+ vehicle owners across 50+ countries. A mechanical-engineer-turned-software-builder, he pivoted from early-stage stints at ClearTax and Bizzy to co-found LocoNav in 2016 alongside Shridhar Gupta. The company has raised $47 million (including a $37M Series B in 2021) and tracks over 5 million vehicles globally, positioning itself as the emerging-market answer to Samsara. Vidit also angel-invests in startups and serves on one board.
Abe Tarapani is the CEO of Atlas AI, a Palo Alto-based geospatial AI company that uses satellite imagery and machine learning to generate actionable insights on economic, agricultural, and infrastructure trends across emerging markets. A Yale-trained electrical engineer and Presidential Scholar recognized by the Clinton White House, Tarapani has spent nearly two decades at the intersection of renewable energy, data for development, and social impact. He joined Atlas AI in October 2020, steering a company founded by Stanford professors toward enterprise partnerships with the World Bank, DARPA, McKinsey, and Airbus, while earning recognition as a 2024 Google Cloud Partner of the Year and Gavi INFUSE Pacesetter.
Lesley Silverthorn Marincola is the founder and CEO of Angaza, a San Francisco-based B2B software company that powers pay-as-you-go financing for solar home systems and other off-grid products across emerging markets. A Stanford-trained product designer and mechanical engineer, she launched Angaza in 2010 after a course called 'Designing for Extreme Poverty' lit a fire she hasn't put out since. Today, Angaza's platform reaches over 5 million people across 50 countries, enabling low-income households to pay for life-changing energy products through weekly micropayments via mobile money — replacing kerosene lamps one $1 payment at a time. Her work earned Angaza the 2018 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and a TED stage appearance. She is a Forbes '30 Under 30' alum, Echoing Green Fellow, and World Economic Forum Young Global Shaper.
Tony Cueva Bravo is a Venture Partner at Hustle Fund, angel investor, and the founder of Emerging Fintech - a weekly newsletter and podcast covering frontier fintech across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. A Peruvian-born engineer who earned his MS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Tony has lived and worked across three continents, driven 50% MoM growth at Rebill (the Stripe of LatAm), won dual startup competitions in Peru and Chile, and built a reputation as one of the sharpest fintech voices in emerging markets. He invests at the pre-seed stage and serves as a fractional operator for early-stage founders who need a thought partner to unlock growth bottlenecks.
Shahzad Shahid is the Group CEO of TPS Worldwide, a Pakistan-headquartered global payments technology company serving 100+ clients across 30+ countries. Starting as a software engineer at TPS in 1999, he rose through roles in regional business development, global marketing, and the C-suite to become CEO in 2014. Under his leadership, TPS has expanded into Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, underpinned key Pakistani financial infrastructure projects like 1LINK and NIFT ePay, and partnered with sustainability-focused fintechs. He is also a former Chairman of P@SHA (Pakistan Software Houses Association) and an active voice on digital economic policy.