Startup Picnic Venture Studio

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BookVentures Evolves into iZwily: A New Platform for Intellectual Property, Royalties, and Creative Products

South Africa — 01 March 2026 Startup Picnic Venture Studio today announced the development of www.izwily.com, a new platform designed to manage intellectual property, royalties, and creative products through an integrated AI-powered operating system. The initiative builds on earlier work conducted under the working name BookVentures, which was used during the platform’s technical conceptualisation phase.

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iZwily (formerly VentureBooks) — Africa’s First IP & Storytelling Operating System Set to Launch Thousands of African Books in Africa and Globally

Update (16 March 2026): BookVentures is now iZwily. “At least sixty percent of books sold in African bookstores are not authored by Africans,” says Tiisetso Maloma Johannesburg, South Africa — 17 November 2025 — Startup Picnic Venture Studio has officially launched its first startup, iZwily (formerly VentureBooks), an Africa-first IP and storytelling operating system built…

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Venture Investing: Why Material Physics, Not Business Statistics, Points to the Future of Disruptive Innovation

Venture investing begins with understanding what’s truly possible. Predicting the future with data and statistics is a bit like forecasting the weather — it works in the short term but collapses over the long run. You might predict rain this afternoon or that people will work on Tuesday if it’s Monday. A year from now?…

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2025 Guide: A Framework for Navigating and Applying Disruptive Innovation in Africa: Spotting Venture Opportunities

Africa Disruptive Innovation Guide – 2025 2025 Guide: A Framework for Navigating and Applying Disruptive Innovation in Africa: Spotting Venture Opportunities Download the PDF here. Last Update: 30 September 2025 Published: 30 September 2025 Authorship Authored by: Tiisetso Maloma and Startup Picnic Venture Studio

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Call for Contributors: Book on the Future of Venture Funding in Emerging Markets

Startup Picnic Venture Studio, in partnership with our associated company Bula Buka Publishers, which I founded over 10 years ago, we are launching a collaborative project to compile a book tentatively titled “Future of Venture Funding in Emerging Markets.” This is a call for contributors to be part of this important publication, which is planned…

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Startup Picnic Evolves Into Africa-Focused Venture Studio to Build Scalable Intellectual Property and Publishing Ecosystem

Johannesburg, South Africa – [1 September 2025] – Startup Picnic, a platform that began in 2014 as an informal networking event for entrepreneurs and investors, has officially evolved into Startup Picnic Venture Studio (SPVS), a South African–based, Africa-focused venture studio dedicated to building scalable businesses rooted in publishing, intellectual property (IP), and technology. What started…

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