Stepping up to start-ups

It is this gap that he hopes to capitalise on.

And Dawson has put R10m of his own money into Campan.

“The initial investment is my own. I am taking the initial risk on this,” he says.

In future, Campan will raise funds.

The start-ups that have partnered with Campan came through referrals and also personal contact with Dawson or his networks. Campan will take an equity stake of between 10% and 20% or more, depending on the structure of the agreement and the finances needed. Dawson will also sit on the boards of the start-ups.

All the start-ups that Campan has invested in are set to challenge existing business models, and will do that by applying technologies such as automation, artificial intelligence, data exchanges and cloudbased solutions.

Dawson’s shift to tech start-ups is quite a jump from the Dimension Data that he first took charge of in 2004.

“I was lucky to have had a good run at Didata and I was thinking about what was next as I was too young to retire. I wanted to do something that would have an impact,” he says.

His tenure coincided with rapid change in the technology sector, but he was able to take maximum advantage of that. Didata quadrupled in size under Dawson’s watch, which lasted for a rather lengthy 12 years.

As for the name Campan, Dawson says his investment firm is named after a leopard at the Sabi Sands Game Reserve bordering the Kruger National Park, which Dawson and his family have visited frequently since the early 2000s.