Technology investment and product development firm Octoco Group has acquired an unknown strategic equity stake in HisWay Labs.

HisWay Labs is the Cape Town-based company behind the rail-integrity monitoring system TrackView, which is now also heading for international shores following domestic testing.

TrackView is a vandal-resistant, cloud-based rail-break detection device designed from the ground up for environments where conventional equipment is often stolen or vandalised.

Rail breaks – literal breaks in the rail – can lead to serious and costly derailments and service disruptions.

“TrackView is a sensor, installed on a railway track, that monitors that length of track – roughly 2 km – for rail breaks,” explains HisWay Labs CEO Franz Struwig.

“It does this by sending micro electric pulses into the track and then reading the response of these pulses.

“The sensor is installed on a sleeper, and connected to the track with very cheap steel cables.”

The TrackView sensor network can also convey info such as train positioning, flat wheels and sleeper displacement.

“The idea was to make something that is difficult and worthless to steal but, in the same breath, easy to install and replace should it get stolen,” explains Struwig.

“The competition’s products are typically quite valuable. They have solar panels and big batteries and in South Africa that doesn’t last.

“The scrap value of our sensor is R6. No copper, no batteries – you can make a paperweight out of it and not much more.”

TrackView is also engineered to withstand extreme heat, dust, flooding and deliberate tampering.

“We are looking at rolling out data-as-a-service as our business model,” notes Struwig.

“This means that we’ll install and maintain the sensors and sell only the information. This means customers will have zero hardware costs.”

TrackView has already earned formal certification and product type approval from the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, and has been deployed commercially in partnership with Siemens Mobility.

“We are talking to all the major local players,” says Struwig. “Our focus is to make a difference in South Africa. It all comes from a place of wanting to make a difference in our country.

“The assembly of TrackView is done in-country, with the electronics coming from China.”

Trackview is currently in active field trials in the US, with the technology also exhibited at September’s InnoTrans in Germany, the world's largest transport technology trade fair.

“We are in a rollout phase now where we need to sign some anchor customers,” says Struwig.

“Rail is the backbone of [South Africa’s] mining, agriculture and manufacturing supply chains, yet years of cable theft, vandalism and undetected track failures have pushed freight onto roads, driven up costs and eroded confidence in the network,” Octoco explains in a statement on its equity move.

“Restoring rail as a dependable, cost-effective way to move goods and people is widely recognised as one of the highest-impact levers for economic recovery.”

“South Africa has a long tradition of solving hard engineering problems out of necessity,” notes Octoco Group MD Heinrich de Lange.

"HisWay Labs has turned one of our most damaging infrastructure challenges into a globally competitive product.

“Backing them is a chance to help restore confidence in our own rail network while proving that world-class industrial hardware can come from here.”

Struwig is a seasoned technology entrepreneur who previously co-founded radar innovation firm iKubu, acquired by Garmin.

He heads a specialised engineering team with expertise across electronics, hardware, software, data communications and railway technology.

Octoco Group is a technology-focussed private equity firm that partners with high-potential tech companies to design, build and scale hardware and software solutions.

Its investment portfolio includes TaxTim, LeaseSurance and SquirrelAway, alongside ventures it has helped build and scale.