How these SA founders took their startup to Silicon Valley

There are few highlights for most tech startups as sought after as cracking the international market and for most of these startups none quite as tantalising as breaking into Silicon Valley. The home of some of the world's biggest tech companies including Apple Inc., Facebook and Google, Silicon Valley is the leading hub and startup ecosystem for high-tech innovation and development. According to a January 2016 report from the Martin Prosperity Institute titled Rise of the Global Startup City, the San Francisco Bay Area, which spans Silicon Valley and San Francisco, remains the world's leading centre for venture capital investment attracting nearly 11 billion, more than a quarter of all global venture investment. A growing number of South African startups have also sought to grab a piece of the Silicon Valley slice, however, this does take some work. If you have your sights set on entering the international playing field, the most difficult thing is getting your foot in the door, says Daniel Schwartzkopff, commercial director and co-founder of Cape Town-based startup and machine learning specialists, DataProphet, who also spends part of his time in the US working with DataProphet's Silicon Valley-based clientele.