Africa · Southern

South African startup Cue has secured a US$5 million Series A round to scale its AI customer-service platform, marking a significant step in the race to build locally controlled artificial intelligence infrastructure across the continent.

South Africa's Cue secures $5 million to scale AI-powered customer-service platform across Africa and beyond (Photo internet reproduction)

Inside the US$5 million round

Cue, a Cape Town-based software-as-a-service company founded in 2015, has closed its largest funding round to date with a US$5 million Series A co-led by South African venture firm Knife Capital and FAM Investments. The raise brings Cue’s total disclosed funding to US$7.5 million, following a US$500,000 pre-seed round in October 2023 and a US$2 million seed round completed in early 2024.

Chief Executive Officer Richard Nischk described the capital as fuel for building autonomous AI agents capable of executing multi-step workflows, from qualifying sales leads to processing returns and sending payment links. The equity split between investors remains undisclosed, but local venture media note the round is Cue’s largest since its founding.

What the AI customer-service platform actually does

Cue’s platform deploys AI-driven chatbots and live chat across WhatsApp, email, SMS, webchat and voice channels, with a focus on autonomous agents that resolve customer interactions without human intervention. The company reports that its first-generation AI agents already handle over 60% of customer queries end-to-end, a figure that underscores why more than 500 businesses in South Africa and the United Kingdom use the software across automotive, retail, insurance, finance and education sectors.

The platform processes over 500 million customer conversations annually, and annual recurring revenue grew by more than 160% year-on-year in the most recent fiscal period. This traction places Cue among a small group of African B2B AI firms that have moved decisively beyond pilot programmes into high-volume, revenue-generating deployments.

Where the money goes: agents, voice and new markets

Cue will channel the US$5 million into three priorities. The first is engineering next-generation autonomous AI agents that can manage complex, multi-step tasks such as updating customer relationship management systems, checking order status and initiating payment links, moving the platform beyond simple FAQ bots toward a unified AI service layer.

The second is voice infrastructure, extending the platform’s capabilities beyond text-based chat into voice-based customer support. The third is geographic expansion, with funds earmarked for sales and marketing in South Africa and the UK, followed by a push into new markets across Africa and beyond.

Local capital and the tech sovereignty play

Knife Capital’s role as co-lead investor carries strategic weight beyond the cheque size. The South African venture firm has emerged as a key backer of domestic AI infrastructure, having also led a US$5 million seed round for Refiant AI, a company focused on compressing AI models for energy-efficient deployment on smaller devices.

This pattern reflects a broader rebalancing of financial power on the continent, where the share of African startup funding coming from local investors has shifted from roughly 20% to around 45% in recent years. As explored in our ongoing coverage of Africa: The New Scramble, control over digital infrastructure and the data it generates is becoming a central front in the contest between local and foreign capital.

South Africa’s AI compute advantage

Cue operates from a country that holds a unique position in African AI infrastructure. A University of Oxford study finds South Africa is the only African nation with AI-focused data centres, hosting four such facilities, two capable of training large AI models and two optimised for inference workloads.

This compute footprint, combined with government investments of R484 million over four years into AI and blockchain research through institutions like the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research, gives platforms like Cue structural advantages in serving both African and UK markets. President Cyril Ramaphosa has also committed US$53 million, rising to US$265 million by 2030 with private co-funding, into PhD programmes for critical skills including AI research.

The great-power backdrop and what to watch

Cue’s raise sits inside a wider contest over who builds and controls Africa’s AI infrastructure. Global cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud host much of the region’s compute, while local startups generate valuable African customer data that can train future models.

A report from the FII Institute with Accenture in November 2025 indicated that 87% of global investors surveyed plan to increase AI investments in the Global South over the following 12 to 24 months. For Cue, the next milestones to watch are whether it can convert its UK beachhead into broader European or Middle Eastern contracts, and how it navigates South Africa’s data protection regime, including POPIA, as it automates customer conversations across regulated sectors like banking and insurance.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Cue’s AI customer-service platform do?

Cue provides AI-driven customer service software that deploys autonomous agents across WhatsApp, email, SMS, webchat and voice channels. The platform handles over 500 million conversations annually and already resolves more than 60% of customer interactions without human involvement, serving sectors including automotive, retail, insurance, finance and education.

Who invested in Cue’s US$5 million funding round?

The Series A round was co-led by Knife Capital, a South African venture capital firm increasingly active in AI investments, and FAM Investments. The round brings Cue’s total disclosed funding to US$7.5 million, following earlier pre-seed and seed rounds backed by angel investors.

Why is local venture capital important for African AI startups?

Local venture capital helps retain intellectual property, data control and strategic decision-making within the region, rather than ceding it to foreign investors. The share of African startup funding from local investors has risen to roughly 45%, and firms like Knife Capital are building a domestic ecosystem that can negotiate on more equal terms with global cloud providers and multinationals.