South African technology distribution veteran Mustek is making a deliberate pivot toward artificial intelligence, committing R7 million to launch a business-to-business AI marketplace as it hunts for new revenue following the dramatic slowdown in its renewable energy hardware sales.
The company, founded in 1987 and the owner of South Africa’s Mecer PC brand, acquired a controlling stake in local startup Business AI and used the investment to build out the marketplace, which will vet and list AI products and services from multiple vendors. The move directly responds to a sharp revenue decline: Mustek’s turnover fell 15% to R7.18 billion for the year ended June 2025, weighed down by weaker consumer demand, public sector procurement delays, and a steep drop in green energy product sales — a market that had previously surged during South Africa’s load-shedding crisis.
Mustek invested the R7 million in exchange for a 51% stake in Business AI. The platform’s core infrastructure is powered by Beyond Now, a Dublin-based AI ecosystem orchestration company. The partnership is designed to prevent vendor lock-in, giving South African enterprises the flexibility to move between AI vendors based on cost, security, or strategic requirements.
Early adopters of the platform include Mustek, Woolworths, Italtile, and Bidvest, reflecting early traction from South Africa’s established corporate sector.
Mustek CEO Hein Engelbrecht explained the company’s thinking: while generative AI has moved past its early hype phase, enterprises are now zeroing in on practical use cases with measurable returns — particularly in analytics, automation, and cybersecurity — and Mustek aims to help clients move from proof-of-concept to scalable, results-driven implementations.
Business AI CEO Rudi Dreyer attributed many failed AI projects to vendors promoting lock-in models, employees using unsecured free AI tools and exposing company data, and a general lack of governance, leaving executives questioning who to trust and how to define a coherent AI strategy.
Mustek’s AI push mirrors a broader global hardware industry trend, with Nvidia and AMD driving investment in AI processors, Lenovo committing $1 billion over three years to AI-enabled personal computers, and the wider AI data centre market projected to attract between $3 trillion and $4 trillion in investment over the coming five years.
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