Endeavor Founder Stories Africa

Endeavor Founder Stories | Episode 7: Pieter de Villiers, CEO and Co-Founder of Clickatell

The Unconventional Origin: From Optometry to SMS

Pieter de Villier entrepreneurial journey began not in tech, but in the field of Optometry, where he completed a Bachelor of Science degree. He found the science fascinating but quickly realized the working reality was that of a retailer, leaving him “perpetually unhappy”.

This dissatisfaction led him to co-found Clickatell in Cape Town in 2000, alongside his twin brother Casper, Danie du Toit, and Patrick Lawson. At a time when text messages were viewed mostly as a novelty for teenagers, the four founders had a revolutionary idea: they wrote four lines of code to create an Application Programming Interface (API) that connected the Internet with mobile phones via SMS. This simple solution—the world’s first way to send an SMS from the internet to a cellphone—was the genesis of a global business.

From Bootstrapping to Silicon Valley Trailblazer

The early days were fraught with challenges, including running up a substantial debt with mobile operators due to offering free SMS as a marketing tool. After an angel investor intervened, De Villiers focused on global expansion.

He quickly recognized that to attract serious institutional capital, Clickatell needed a US presence. He moved to Silicon Valley around 2005, and shortly thereafter, the company achieved a major milestone: Sequoia Capital invested in Clickatell, marking the first time the top-tier VC firm backed a South African startup. Clickatell’s technology, which enabled seamless account creation using only a cell number, was instrumental in onboarding hundreds of millions of users for partners like WhatsApp.

The Chat Commerce Revolution

Clickatell has maintained its leadership by constantly innovating across two decades of technology disruption. It successfully moved beyond basic SMS messaging to pioneer the next major evolution in digital engagement: Chat Commerce.

Chat Commerce is the convergence of communications and commerce, allowing consumers to connect, interact, and transact with brands directly within popular messaging apps like WhatsApp. Clickatell led the industry by launching several firsts:

  • The world’s first chat banking solution with ABSA.

  • The first company globally to enable in-channel tokenized payments within WhatsApp.

  • The launch of its Chat Commerce Platform as a Service (CCPaaS) to drive secure, frictionless transactions within the chat interface.

The company’s mission is simple: “to continue giving people back time” by making commerce in chat accessible and convenient for everyone, everywhere.

Leadership and Social Impact: The SiMODiSA Initiative

De Villiers views his leadership not just through Clickatell’s success, but through its broader impact. He has worked hard to foster an environment that supports a hybrid workforce and empowers his teams.

His passion for empowerment extends directly to the South African ecosystem, where he is the founder and Chairman of SiMODiSA (meaning: “to shepherd/or lead”). This initiative is focused on accelerating startup success and, more critically, addressing the digital skills gap. De Villiers believes solving this skills gap is a bigger economic opportunity for South Africa than mining or agriculture, with the potential to create over a million digital jobs.

Clickatell’s story serves as powerful proof that innovation born in Africa can successfully shape the world.