Vinny Lingham (born Vinodan Lingham) is a South African-born American

Internet entrepreneur An Internet entrepreneur is an owner, founder or manager of an Internet-based business. This list includes Internet company founders and people brought on to companies for their general business or accounting acumen, as is the case with some Chie ...

who is the co-founder & CEO of Civic – an identity protection and management startup based in California. He was also previously the founder and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Gyft (acquired by First Data Corporation in 2014 for over $50m) & Yola, Inc. He is also the co-founder of SiliconCape, an

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

based in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

that aims to turn

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

into a technology hub.

Entrepreneurship

In 2003, Lingham founded incuBeta, an investment holding company that engages in the ownership, management, and support of online marketing companies in various stages of development, with offices in the US, UK and Cape Town. Also in 2003, Lingham founded Clicks2Customers, a subsidiary of incuBeta that provides

search engine marketing Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising. SEM may incorporate search engine opti ...

software and services. Lingham served as the CEO of both companies. In 2007, Lingham founded Yola, a proprietary web development platform for individuals, small businesses and organizations. To date, Yola has received over $25 million in funding from

Johann Rupert Johann Peter Rupert (born 1 June 1950) is a South African billionaire businessman, who is the eldest son of business tycoon Anton Rupert and his wife Huberte. He is the chairman of the Swiss-based luxury-goods company Richemont and the South Af ...

's Reinet Fund. Vinny Lingham is the co-founder of the

Silicon Cape Initiative The Cape Silicon Initiative or Silicon Cape is a regional ICT business networking NPO and community in the Western Cape, South Africa. Background and launch The Silicon Cape Initiative is a private sector community movement that was founded by ...

, a South African-based organization which aims to turn the Western Cape into a high-tech startup hub. He is also the co-founder of the investment fund Newtown Partners, through which Lingham has led early stage investments into successful and notable startups including Sweep South and Augmentors. Lingham was selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2006 and a

Young Global Leader Forum of Young Global Leaders, or Young Global Leaders (YGL), was created by Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum. The YGL, a non-profit organization managed from Geneva, Switzerland, is under the supervision of the Swiss government ...

in 2009 with the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...

. Endeavor is a global non-profit that selects and supports high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets. In 2012, Lingham started Gyft, a mobile gift card company, with the backing of

Google Ventures GV is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides Seed investment, seed, Venture capital financing, venture, and Growth investing, growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Venture ...

. In two years, Gyft became the leading service in the mobile gift card space and was acquired by

First Data Corporation First Data Corporation is a financial services company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The company's STAR Network provided nationwide domestic debit acceptance at more than 2 million retail POS, ATM, and Online outlets for nea ...

in 2014 for more than US$54m. In 2015, Lingham founde
Civic
a startup that encrypts identity information on the

blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...

. Civic raised in excess of US$33m in funding during its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in June 2017. From 2014 to 2016, Lingham was one of the investors, or "dragons", on South Africa's ''

Dragons' Den ''Dragons' Den'' is a reality television program format in which entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists in the hope of securing investment finance from them. The program originated in 2001 in Japan, where it is k ...

reality TV Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

series. Starting in 2016, he is one of the "sharks" on the follow-up to ''Dragons' Den'', ''Shark Tank South Africa''. In 2017, Lingham was also an "Angel" on

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

's not-for-profit program Undercover Angel. Lingham is also the co-author of "I'm In: Essential Advice for Entrepreneurs". In the summer of 2020, Lingham co-founded

Waitroom Waitroom is a host-led livestreaming and video meeting platform that allows one-on-one engagement between hosts and their audiences. These engagements can range from 30 seconds to 30 minutes long. Waitroom was co-founded in the summer of 2020 by ...

, a host-led

livestreaming Livestreaming is streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time over the internet. It is often referred to simply as streaming. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but no ...

and video meeting platform that will allow one-on-one engagement between hosts and their audiences.

Awards

Lingham's industry accolades include:
Top 500 CEO's in the World, 2015

World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders, 2009

Endeavor High Impact Entrepreneur, 2006
* Top Young ICT Entrepreneur in Africa Award, 2006

References

External links

Vinny Lingham’s personal weblog

Civic’s Web site

TechCrunch Article

Endeavor Profile: Vinny Lingham
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lingham, Vinny South African businesspeople 1979 births Living people Gordon Institute of Business Science alumni University of Cape Town alumni Technology company founders South African chief executives Chief executives in the technology industry South African company founders Directors of Yahoo! People associated with Bitcoin