We are hosting a workshop on "Durban Startups accessing Venture Capital" with one of America's biggest Venture Capitalist, Kamran Elahian - Founder of Global Catalyst Partners which is an international, multistage, technology-oriented venture capital firm. He is in Durban today looking for local startups to interact with. He will be joined by Gavin Reardon Founder of Kingson 


Kamran Elahian

Kamran Elahian, a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, philanthropist. As an entrepreneur, Kamran co-founded ten companies, three of them failed and six of them produced a total market cap of over $8B. As a VC, Kamran co-founded Global Catalyst Partners


Experienced and reputable entrepreneur Kamran Elahian is currently chair and co-founder of Global Catalyst Partners (GCP), an international technology oriented venture capital firm. He is co-chair of UNGAID, The Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (GAID) - a United Nations global forum that comprehensively addresses cross-cutting issues related to ICT in development.


He founded Schools- Online in 1996 (now part of humanitarian charity Relief International) a charity that works to bring the Internet to underprivileged schools in over 36 countries. In almost 3 decades as a high-tech entrepreneur, Kamran has co-founded 10 companies: CAE Systems (acquired by Tektronix for $75M) Cirrus Logic (IPO at $150M) Momenta, NeoMagic (IPO at $300M) PlanetWeb (acquired by MTI in 2009) Centillium Communications (IPO at $700M) Actelis Networks (a broadband communications systems company) Informative, Entopia, Greenfield Networks (acquired by Cisco Systems in 2006).

Kamran is also a board member of Actelis Networks, Beceem Communications, iKoa and SoundHound. Kamran has an educational background in science, having first achieved his BSc Computer Science and Mathematics and then a MSc in Computer Graphics from the University of Utah. 

Gavin Reardon

Gavin Reardon is the Founder & CEO of Kingson Capital, one of Durban's biggest venture capital company's. Gavin has invested and is on the Board of seven Durban and SA startups including two of our past speaker's startups - FinFind by Darlene Menzies (Africa's top female entrepreneur according to the WEF) and Spazapp, a tech startup that has partnered with Unilever, Mastercard and Tiger Brands.

Gavin has held financial management and consultancy positions in the construction, property, logistics and forwarding, information technology and financial services industries. Founding Kingson, Gavin has a vision to create an entrepreneurial hub that drives innovation and brings to market disruptive technology that has the potential to change the way we live.

Gavin qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2009. He has held various financial management and consultancy positions. After completing his articles he joined JT Ross as a Financial Manager and later appointed Group Financial Manager in 2012. In April 2013 he joined a boutique management consultancy firm specialising in strategy, supply chain optimisation and business process reengineering. Gavin was then appointed CFO of Praxis Financial Services in 2014 and exited Praxis after completing an equity sale where a JSE listed entity acquired a majority stake. Gavin then founded a VC fund, Kingson Capital, to leverage his skillset assisting startup founders and SME’s.

Founding Kingson, Gavin has a vision to create an entrepreneurial hub that drives innovation and brings to market disruptive technology that has the potential to change the way we live. Kingson Capital provides venture capital for companies and strategize their route to market. It provides venture capital for companies and strategizes their route to market dominance. Kingson Capital offers resources from day one that will set companies up for accelerated growth.