Meet Mitchan Adams:
Mitchan “Mitch” Adams is the Founder, and CEO of Aions Creative Technology. Mitch pursued a career in IT, finding early entrance into the Fintech industry through a brokerage, then gained experience in the payments industry. This led him to start a company in 2014, called Ozow Payments with the aim to develop the biggest alternative payments platform in Southern Africa.
The company grew from 3 founders to a staff of over 100 with an office in Johannesburg and Cape Town. The company valuation went from 0 ZAR to hundreds of millions in USD, within 7 years, with Tencent leading a 48m USD series B investment round in 2021, at which point Mitchan had decided to exit the day-to-day operations of the business.
In 2022, Adams founded – and funded – local venture builder and business incubator Aions Creative Technology earlier in 2022 with two major goals: to incubate and scale local start-ups to become scalable, sustainable businesses, and help corporate South Africa be better at B-BBEE in the process. By doing this, he believed the country can build sustainable jobs it desperately needs to ease its crippling unemployment numbers.
The name Aions is derived from the Greek word ‘Aeon’, which means ‘age’ and ‘life-force’, and the Finnish verb for the intention to do something. Adams has a vision of a virtuous circle, in which the company matches the small businesses it creates directly with corporates looking for recipients of B-BBEE funding. With the right funding and mentorship, he aims to scale these small companies rapidly, to the point where they create significant employment opportunities.
To date, Aions has invested and incubated 4 startups into its program, namely, Coco Brands, Scooter, Level Finance and Tubby’s Kitchen that are now flourishing and aims to add more in the coming years. “The ultimate opportunity is to create sustainable businesses, which will then provide sustainable jobs, which will then create the future customers for South African businesses. And that’s a win for everyone.”
