Harry co-founded UW Ventures alongside long-time friend, colleague and fellow CA(SA) Sabelo Sithebe in 2017. Since its founding, UW has established itself as a reputable mid-market private equity investor and an active participant in South Africa and Africa’s burgeoning venture capital ecosystem, building a portfolio of over 20 assets with the backing and partnership of some of South Africa’s leading financial institutions.

Harry’s recent focus has been on building UW’s venture capital franchise. In partnership with Allan Gray, UW’s venture division has invested in over 12 early-stage technology companies since 2019, providing much-needed growth capital to inspiring start-up technology firms in South Africa and beyond. UW continues to back ambitious and dynamic founding teams striving to solve some of the country and continent’s most pressing problems.

UW’s venture portfolio has experienced significant traction, with over $100 million in capital raised and 330 jobs created across the portfolio to date. Several portfolio companies have successfully entered international markets, illustrating the world-class potential of South African talent.

Passionate about investing in early-stage technology companies setting out to solve important problems, Harry has worked hand in hand alongside founders to help them realise their vision and support them in achieving their strategic goals. Harry, UW and its partners seek to be more than providers of capital, and partner with founders and management teams to support a broad base of business needs, including fundraising efforts, global expansion initiatives, strategy, finance, governance and business development.

Technology companies have the potential to innovate, grow and transform business models as well as contribute to solving the country’s growth and unemployment challenges. Harry has committed to supporting founders, management teams and companies at a crucial point of their lifecycle – their formative years – where the provision of capital and skills can have an outsized impact.

Talent is equally distributed across the globe, but missing ingredients in South Africa are often access to early-stage capital and the right support infrastructure to help these founders and companies succeed. Harry and UW Ventures’ vision is to solve this need and contribute toward building companies that matter, whilst taking the best of South Africa and Africa to the rest of the world.

Before founding UW, Harry spent several years as a principal in one of South Africa’s leading private equity firms, Investec Principal Investments. He also played a meaningful role in the creation of what is now known as the Bud Group of companies. He has also served on several boards and as an advisor to several companies including Peach Payments, Synatic, Vox Telecom, Cerebos, Autocast and FFS Refiners.