Partners since the
beginning.
As entrepreneurs living in Southern Africa, we created 4Di Capital to address the need we saw for both capital and mentorship in the local venture ecosystem.
Given our backgrounds, we prefer to invest at the early-stages where our knowledge, experience and networks can be of most value to founders in this emerging market.
Anton van Vlaanderen
Anton joined 4Di in 2011, bringing more than 20 years’ experience as an entrepreneur, angel investor and venture investor to the firm. He currently serves as 4Di’s Managing Partner, responsible for the management of the firm’s operations, as well as overseeing many of the firm’s portfolio investments.
Shortly after leaving university in 2000, Anton spent a year working with Old Mutual Properties, a division of South Africa’s largest insurer, as part of an innovation team tasked with turning around poorly performing property assets in the company’s portfolio. Within a year, Anton acquired an ailing flexible office company in Johannesburg, which he replicated to start a similar initiative in Cape Town.
Having decided he was better suited to entrepreneurial rather than corporate life, Anton launched a fresh fruit export marketing business with his father, Erik van Vlaanderen, which they owned and managed profitably for seven years. During that time, Anton became actively involved in some of 4Di’s earliest angel investment activities, which the firm initially structured as a private family office investment vehicle.
Anton holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of South Africa and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management from the University of Cape Town.
Erik van Vlaanderen
An experienced corporate executive and serial entrepreneur, Erik brings more than 20 years’ experience in VC and technology startups as a founder, angel and venture capital investor to 4Di Capital. A chartered accountant by training, Erik was a partner at Deloitte (South Africa) prior to holding various senior corporate executive positions over the subsequent decades.
In 1991, Erik was appointed General Manager Finance of Unifruco Limited and, in 1994, CEO of subsidiary Vinfruco, the wine export business founded and launched by Unifruco that would later merge into Stellenbosch Vineyards. In 1997, he took over as CEO of Unifruco (South Africa), two years before the company merged with Outspan International, and ahead of partnering with leading banana company Fyffes of Ireland to become South Africa’s largest fruit exporter. As Executive Director, International Marketing of the new entity (known as Capespan Limited), Erik was responsible for the global marketing and distribution of a wide range of fruit varietals across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia from the company’s offices in London, Antwerp, Milan, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
In 2001, Erik pivoted to an entrepreneurial path. Together with his son, Anton, he built a successful international fruit marketing business. Having helped co-found 4Di with Justin Stanford, Erik made the decision with Anton to close the fruit export business and focus full-time on the company, which had rapidly grown off the back of the successful expansion of its internet security businesses throughout Southern Africa, and imminent launch a venture capital fund management business to formalize its investments in startup activities.
Erik holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honors) degree from the University of Cape Town. A Chartered Accountant, he is a general partner of 4Di Capital where he advises – and previously served on the board of – many of the firm’s portfolio companies, imparting his wisdom and leadership to the next generation of African entrepreneurs.
Laurie Olivier
An experienced founder and early-stage investor, Laurie has been involved in venture capital since 1990, advising, investing in and helping to manage startups across sub Saharan Africa, Europe, Asia, the United States and Israel.
Laurie began his career as Senior Vice President for Private Equity at Anglo American, a leading global mining conglomerate, representing the company’s interests and serving on the boards of numerous venture funds, including East Asian private equity fund MCPEPA, South African venture fund MCA, and AAV, an Israeli fund managed by Veritas Venture Partners, the country’s first VC. Laurie subsequently maintained a 20-year partnership with Veritas and served on the boards of its portfolio companies in both Israel and the United States.
While at Anglo American, Laurie also established new technology-driven businesses and served on the boards of myriad publicly traded and privately held companies, including Anglo American Industrial Corporation, Ltd and several of the group’s Asian joint ventures, including Mitsubishi, Temasek, Bangkok Bank and the Daewoo Group.
Widely sought after for his VC expertise, Laurie was a commercialization advisor to the University of Pretoria and frequent judge in business plan competitions across South Africa. He has served on the boards of numerous U.S. technology-related industry forums, including the American Israel Chamber of Commerce (Southeast) and the Southern Capital Forum. He has been a board director of more than 50 companies, including the industrial holdings of a Fortune500 corporation, and is currently an advisor to or member of the board of several technology companies in both the United States and South Africa.
Laurie holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics) degree from the University of Pretoria and a Bachelor of Commerce (Honors) degree with a Diploma in Datametrics from the University of South Africa. He is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
Justin Stanford
Justin has over two decades of experience in tech startups and venture capital on the African continent, as both an entrepreneur and investor. As co-founder of The Silicon Cape Initiative, he played a critical leadership role in the venture ecosystem in South Africa. Widely acknowledged as a leader in the sector, Justin is frequently sought out for his expertise and serves as a board member, as well as an advisor to or investor in, a wide variety of local and global technology companies.
Born and raised on a farm, Justin’s interest in the evolving convergence of software and connectivity influenced his decision to forgo completing high school, instead pursuing his dream of becoming an entrepreneur at the dawn of the internet age. In the early 2000s, after several years of failed startup attempts, Justin – together with 4Di Partner Erik van Vlaanderen – built a pan-African online software company in the emerging cybersecurity industry from a garage in the suburbs of Cape Town. The company, known as 4Di Group, remains privately held after a successful partial exit to a private equity group in 2017.
As his passion for entrepreneurship and the tech scene in South Africa grew, Justin sought ways to help catalyze the development of an ecosystem that could support startups and meaningfully address the lack of seed capital available to founders. Together with Erik, what began as locally-based angel investing led to his co-founding (in 2009) the Silicon Cape Initiative, a community-driven non-profit focused on promoting and growing South Africa’s nascent venture sector.
Encouraged by the positive momentum, 4Di Capital was founded with the idea of replicating a Silicon Valley-type venture firm adapted for Africa. As a founding partner, Justin continues to spend his time working with and investing in early-stage technology companies across the continent. He is an avid pilot of both airplanes and helicopters.
With decades of experience building businesses in Africa as both founders and funders, we pride ourselves on having close partnerships with founders.
Sian Cathrall
Sian began her career in finance as an Audit Manager at Ernst & Young in London, where she completed her ACCA qualifications with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. After four years in the UK office, she returned to South Africa to join the firm’s Corporate Finance team and was quickly “fast-tracked” to the role of Senior Manager.
Over the next few years, Sian gained extensive transaction experience working with her EY colleagues on some of the region’s largest private equity deals. Her passion for the sector and focus on technology serendipitously led to due diligence work on a startup founded by Justin Stanford and Erik van Vlaanderen, who soon after offered her a position at 4Di.
Born in Johannesburg to a serial entrepreneur mother and career accountant father, Sian attributes her eclectic mix of high energy numbers fanatic and interest in people, innovation and the startup ecosystem to her upbringing. After completing school at St Mary’s with academic colors, Sian went on to study at the University of Cape Town, graduating (Dean’s List) with a Bachelor of Business Science degree specializing in Finance and Accounting (Honors). She is a registered member of the ICAEW.
Kim Robertson
Kim brings nearly two decades of experience in the financial services sector to her role as 4Di Capital’s Financial Manager.
Kim began her career at PWC in Cape Town, where she completed her accounting articles and worked as a Senior Auditor. Prior to joining 4Di in August 2019, Kim spent 11 years with the Macquarie Group in Cape Town, initially as a product accountant in equity derivatives and structuring, responsible for all aspects of accounting practices, including daily P&L reporting, new product approvals, regulatory reporting and month-end balance sheet sign-off; and, later, in the firm’s Corporate Center, where she served as a Senior Manager responsible for legal entity control, including regulatory reporting and tax compliance.
Kim holds a Bachelor of Business Science degree specializing in Finance and Accounting (Honors) from the University of Cape Town. She is a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accounts (SAICA QE and IRBA PPE) and has successfully completed Levels I-III of the Chartered Financial Analyst exams.
Samantha Campbell
Sam joined 4Di in early 2017 as the Operations Manager for the firm, responsible for marketing, investor reporting requirements and all compliance matters for 4Di Capital’s funds.
Born in England and raised in South Africa, Sam started her career in London working for a well-known special events company, managing talent and helping to organize logistics. The role ultimately led to her joining Springer Nature, the leading publisher of the world's most prestigious journals and a prominent voice in scholarly communications, where she oversaw client services and corporate events.
Sam attended Stellenbosch University, where she majored in Value and Policy Studies before transferring to AFDA, where she earned a B.A. in Motion Picture Medium. She has completed post-graduate courses in Marketing Management (UNISA), as well as Graphic Design and Operations Management (GetSmarter).
Meredith Ogilvie-Thompson
Born and raised in New York, Meredith started her career at Time, Inc before leaving for South Africa, where she worked as a financial reporter for Business Day in Johannesburg. Her expertise covering business, combined with her knowledge of political and regulatory environments across the continent, eventually led to her appointment as Managing Director for Africa at Aldwych Capital Partners; Partner at Constant Ventures; and, most recently, Senior Advisor at 4Di Capital.
An experienced business development strategist with extensive experience helping to structure partnerships and raise capital for Africa-focused initiatives, Meredith has served as an Executive Director, Development Director and non-Executive Board Member to various Africa-focused organizations. In 2018, she launched Africa House, an innovative business development platform that functioned as a pop-up members club during UN General Assembly, bringing together high-level policymakers, business executives and entrepreneurs in a program of events focused on investment in Africa.
Meredith holds a B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University and a Graduate Diploma in Modern Art Studies from the University of Cambridge. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, serves on the advisory board of Big Life Foundation and is a Trustee of ERuDeF (Cameroon).
The people who truly know how to provide a safe passage in these markets, are the ones who have been at the forefront of the movement itself.
Our portfolio
4Di's portfolio has a footprint in more than 15 African countries, as well as in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.
