About Shepherd

Shepherd Modisha is a tech entrepreneur and investor from GaModisha, a village just outside Polokwane in Limpopo, South Africa. His father died when he was only twelve years old, an event that continues to define big parts of his life to this day. He grew up one of two kids in a middle-class family headed by his father, Ezekiel “Pretty Easy” Modisha, a talented mechanic and controversial car spinning extraordinaire.

Under the guidance of his mother, Elizabeth "Professor Lizzy", Shepherd became an even better spinner himself, known in the spinning circles of Johannesburg as Herd Boy because of his rural roots. Growing up in a poor community, he witnessed first-hand the financial realities of many South Africans, he founded Randalas along with his friend Nare Phala, they later sold the company and he founded Shepherd’s Eye almost immediately after the sale and he continues to lead that company today.

Randalas

Randalas is a financial technology company specialising in microloans and risk management artificial intelligence aimed at high-risk individuals and enterprises. Shepherd came up with the name by adding Rand to Mandela after it was announced that the banknotes would bear Nelson's face. Shepherd was the Chief Engineer of the company aimed at the majority of poor South African excluded by the formal banking sector. The company was sold in what remains the biggest acquisition of a fintech start-up in the history of South Africa. He used his newly gained capital to fund Shepherd's Eye.

Shepherd’s Eye

After his unexplainable escape and father’s death from a car accident, Shepherd made it his mission to eliminate car accidents on the road. His best solution is Shepherd’s Eye, a company that designs and builds autonomous car capabilities and computer vision technologies. Shepherd’s Eye is one of very few companies in the world that vowed to never use lidar technology in their self-driving car packages, a decision he still has to defend to this day.

Other Interests

Motorsport

Shepherd began spinning cars at the age of thirteen, by the time he was seventeen he could compose a song using hot wheels and a screaming engine and leave the body no choice but to dance. After he arrived in Orlando, Soweto, a place his parents used to dominate, he was told he could never be better than his legendary mother-father duo and that’s when he stepped on the pedal with his flashy sister as a stuntwoman. They won the Johannesburg Spinning Championship a record six times.

Investing