Tiny South African technology start-up gets a big Silicon Valley leg-up

South African tech start-up Consumption Information Real Time (Cirt) has been selected to join the latest accelerator programme run by GSD Venture Studios in Silicon Valley.

GSD, which stands for “get sh*t done”, focuses on identifying smaller technology companies with the potential to scale up and compete in global markets.

Cirt, a tiny seven-person company that is just three years old, has already attracted the attention of giants such as Microsoft and boasts clients such as AB-InBev, the multinational drink and brewing company. The company was founded by Johannesburg friends Ajay Lalu and Sanjay Soni, both CAs by training and entrepreneurs at heart.

To put it simply, Cirt is an internet of things (IoT) company that uses technology and data to help its customers make better business decisions and improve their return on investments. IoT describes physical objects that are embedded with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies to connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the internet or other communications networks.

One Cirt offering, for instance, dubbed Fridgeloc, monitors the temperature inside beer or softdrink fridges and that of the motor on the outside. It then sends this information to the service manager in real time.

“A company like AB-InBev has 200,000 fridge coolers across South Africa,” says Lalu, “and keeping track of them can be challenging.”

The real-time data from Fridgeloc helps AB-InBev proactively assess demand – rapid changes in temperature suggest the fridge is being opened regularly and the pub or shebeen may be busy. And, by using GSM triangulation, the supplier can tell if the fridge has moved outside its “geo-fence”.

“A substantial portion of these coolers go missing every year, costing the company millions,” Lalu says.

It was an easy step to adapt this technology to monitor and measure the location and temperature of cold-storage devices used for the Covid-19 vaccines. And, similarly, it can be adapted to measure the location and temperature of fresh produce from farm to shelf.

“The insights that we can provide to healthcare workers or retailers can save them a fortune in food-waste losses,” says Lalu. In addition, blockchain technology makes the data secure and trustworthy.

Cirt's technology, in particular Fridgeloc, was showcased at the Internet of Things World Congress in 2019, where it attracted the attention of Microsoft.

“We were one of a handful of companies globally using the Microsoft toolset and they selected our tech to showcase at their stand at the National Retail Federation’s show in New York in 2020. This is retail’s big show,” Lalu says.

Consumption Information Real Time co-founder Ajay Lalu. (Photo: Supplied)