Our agency sees the same problems in store after store: checkouts that leak, content that doesn’t sell, data nobody uses. Artive Ventures is where we go after those problems properly, with time and money set aside to research, test and build, away from client deadlines.
We run small, fast experiments on the problems South African merchants actually have, and publish what we learn. Most experiments stop here, and that’s the point.
When an experiment proves itself, the studio turns it into a business: brand, product, go-to-market and a team to run it. Artive brings the creative commerce muscle. Founders bring the obsession.
What if every product page wrote, tested and improved itself?
Why does paying still lose one shopper in every few?
How does a local brand buy shelf space on a screen as easily as in a store?
What does a store look like when it lives inside WhatsApp?
What would a small store do with the data only big retailers have?
How do we bring spaza shops the tools that chains take for granted?
Talk to merchants and shoppers, dig into the data and size the problem.
GateA real problem that real merchants feel.
Build the smallest thing that works and put it in front of people.
GatePeople use it without being asked twice.
Run it live with real stores, real money and real numbers.
GateIt pays: revenue, retention or cost saved.
Give it a brand, a team and a plan of its own, backed by the group.
GateA reason to exist on its own.
More in the lab. We show them when they’re ready.
Building something in commerce? Bring us the idea or the early product. We bring brand, build and growth.
Pilot a new idea with us on your channels or in your stores, and get first use of what works.
Platforms, payment providers and investors who want to build the next layer of South African commerce with us.
Something else? Email us
A team that builds new companies from the ground up, again and again. Instead of backing a finished business, we help create it: the idea, the brand, the product and the first customers.
No. We’re a studio. We back ventures mainly with our people: strategy, brand, product, engineering and growth. How each venture is set up is agreed with its founders.
Yes. Email us a few lines on the problem, who has it and why you. If it fits our focus, we’ll set up a call.
Not here. Client work lives at Artive Commerce, our creative commerce agency. The lab works on its own ideas, and on pilots with partners.
Artive Commerce is our agency. Artive Capital is our trading desk. Artive Ventures is the R&D lab and venture studio. Same group, same obsession with commerce.
Got a commerce problem worth a company? We want to hear it.
A few lines is enough: the problem, who has it and why now.