Fellow of the Actuarial Society of South Africa. In insurance since 2013 – product, pricing, partnerships, new business. Eight-plus years of that in leadership. Designed the products, priced them, signed the partnerships. The operating spine of the ecosystem.
FutureGen · An Alzu Group company · Since 1968
We back operators.
The investment arm of the Alzu Group.
Patient capital. Operator-led diligence. A 58-year operating group sitting behind every cheque.
Johannesburg · South Africa · Long-only · No outside LPs
I - Conviction
Four convictions.
The brand is a position. These are the four positions that hold it together – and explain every move we make.
01
Patience is the moat.
We hold for decades, not exits. The institutions we partner with know we are not in a hurry, and design accordingly.
02
Operators run our diligence.
Every investment is sponsored by a FutureGen Group operator. We do not commit capital we cannot also support.
03
The Group is the cap table behind ours.
Capital with operating gravity. Distribution, regulatory experience, and sector relationships built across 58 years – inherited on day one.
04
We add value before we add capital.
The first meeting is about your problem, not our cheque size. Investment follows usefulness – not the reverse.
III · Thesis
Financial services first. Adjacent on conviction.
Primary thesis
Proudly investing in South African-made financial services operators.
Our primary thesis is South African financial services – funeral assurance, life, asset administration, and the platforms that connect them to distribution at scale.
Adjacent categories follow the FutureGen ecosystem – coffin and tombstone manufacturing upstream of funeral insurance; microloans and credit life adjacent to life cover; short-term insurance as the natural next licence. We will not invest in a category we cannot operate inside.
Seed through growth · Preference for product-market fit · Long-only
IV · What we have built
One licence. Four operators. A national platform.
The thesis is not theoretical. We have spent two years building it. A licensed underwriter anchors the platform; the layers above it source, administer, and distribute.
Licence
Hollard.
Anchor underwriter
A network where innovation meets collaboration, where the expertise of insurance brokers, life advisers, investment advisors, agents and dynamic businesses converges to create exceptional value; that’s the power of Hollard Partners.
Underwritten by Hollard Life Assurance Company Limited (Reg no. 1993/001405/06), a Licensed Life Insurer and an authorised Financial Services Provider. Terms and Conditions apply.
Services
Onyx 365.
Black-owned admin house
Holds the Hollard binder. Sources, onboards, and manages funeral parlour partners across South Africa.
Distribution
FutureGen Partners.
Super Cell
An innovative mechanism to share in insurance profits.
Distribution
FutureGen Financial Services.
FAIS-licensed FSP
Wholly-owned. Sales capacity and innovation hub for advisory work across the ecosystem.
V · Other investments
Beyond the platform.
Selective positions outside the core ecosystem. Held the same way we hold the rest – patiently, with operator alongside the capital.
Investment
Accicare.
Specialty finance · RAF claim bridges
Bridge financing for Road Accident Fund claimants. Cash advanced against valid claims that take years to settle. A specialist credit book in a category most lenders avoid.
Investment
Accisure.
Membership · Benefits programme
A membership programme. Not insurance – a curated set of benefits members pay to belong to. Recurring revenue, low capital intensity, high lifetime value.
Investment
Advanced Energies.
Energy · Power solutions
A long position in South African energy. Different sector, same conviction – back operators building real things in real categories.
VII · The Group
Trusted, not tendered.
FutureGen wasn’t pitched. It was chosen. The Alzu Group asked a small team to lead the diversification of a 58 year-old family enterprise – a job you only get when you’ve earned the right to be wrong on someone else’s behalf.
Built across nearly six decades – agriculture, retail, infrastructure, and now financial services. We are not a fund raising from outside LPs. We are the Group’s own balance sheet, deployed with conviction and held with patience.
VIII · Approach
How we work after the cheque.
The brand is a position. These are the four positions that hold it together – and explain every move we make.
01 - Cadence
Quarterly, not constant.
We meet with founders quarterly by design. Between meetings, you build. We are available when you ask; we will not call when you don’t.
02 - Help
Operating, not observing.
When a portfolio company asks, we pull in FutureGen Group operators – regulatory, distribution, partnerships – to work alongside the team. Unbundled help. Not a board seat.
03 - Horizon
Aligned with the long term.
Our hold periods are measured in decades. We have never sold a position to optimise a vintage. We will not start with yours.
IX · The mark
A leaf.
A wheat sheaf.
Two cupped hands.
A flag.
Look quickly: a leaf – a thing growing. Look longer: a wheat sheaf, where this family began. Look longer still: two hands cupped together – stewardship made visible.
And once you have seen it, a flag – converging fronds, multiple colours meeting on one surface, the same architecture this country uses in its own.
The mark holds four readings at once. We never forced a single one. The brand is all four.
X . THE TEAM
Seven operators. One conviction.
FutureGen is run by a small team. Each one has built something. Each one has carried a balance sheet. None are passengers.
Wihan Jacobs
Director · CEO
Finance management, dealership operations, bridging finance. Runs the firm. Closes the cheques. The deal flow ends at his desk.
Odette Manachi FASSA
Director · COO
Ben Myburgh
CFO · Alzu Group
Chartered Accountant. Twenty-three years inside Alzu – finance manager, then CFO. Carries the books across agri, property, and FMCG. The Group’s capital lives on his balance sheet.
Gerrit du Toit
Head of Internal Audit · Alzu Group
CA(SA), Pretoria. Articled at Ashton. Joined Alzu as Internal Auditor in 2024. Controls and precision, without exception.
Marnus Bonsma
Group Financial Manager · Alzu Retail
BCom (Hons) Management Accounting. CIMA Strategic. Group FM at Alzu Retail since 2009 – fuel, convenience, restaurants, wholesale. Integrated the KFC estate. Ran Alzu Fuels as GM from 2014. Knows where every rand sits.
Robert du Toit
Strategic Finance
BCom Honours, South Africa. MSc Strategic Finance, abroad. Co-founded Ella Genetics. VC training at Fledge Capital. In-service with Yum. Now inside the family business – one eye on retail, one on what comes next.
Alex Tafesse
Chief of Distribution
An industrial engineer by training, Alex brings experience across insurance, financial services and technology for Insurance companies and multi national banks.
His work has spanned three continents and ten-plus countries, with a focus on building partnerships that are commercially sound and scalable.
When we sign things, we sign them - The FutureGen team. The names are here so you know who you're writing to.
THE INVITATION
One sentence is enough.
If you are building something the FutureGen Group should know about, send a short note. Three or four sentences is enough. We read everything that comes in personally.