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Mxit: how did Alan Knott-Craig Jr's R500m bet go so badly wrong?

27 Oct 2015

Mxit as we know it is dead. The company announced on Friday that it had shut down its commercial operations and would be transferring its IP to the Reach Trust, its charitable arm...

Image source © Memeburn

The news had an air of inevitability about it - we predicted that this would be the direction Mxit would take back in February - but it's a far cry from the hype that surrounded the company just four years ago when Alan Knott-Craig Jr acquired it from Naspers and founder Herman Heunis in a deal rumoured to be worth around R500-million.

So how did it all go so wrong?

As with any company collapse it's impossible to pin down a single determining factor...

Continue reading the full article here.

About Stuart Thomas

Stuart abandoned what was beginning to look like a long, quiet career in academia for the frenetic world of tech journalism. Currently heading up the Memeburn team, he likes to run in in his downtime. He won an award once. It now sits on his desk.