About Khanya
We built the tool we wish existed.
It started with a frustration.
Every freelancer and agency owner in South Africa knows the feeling.
You are good at your work. You win clients. You deliver great results. But the business side, including finding new clients, tracking deals, and managing invoices, is scattered across multiple tools, spreadsheet tabs, and sticky notes.
You search Google for "CRM for freelancers" and find tools built for American sales teams with American pricing in American dollars. They integrate with tools you have never heard of. Their "lead generation" features pull from US B2B lists that have never heard of Sandton or Bellville.
So you go back to scattered tools.
We built Khanya because that should not be the answer.
What we built
Khanya is a CRM and lead discovery platform built specifically for South African freelancers and small agencies. It has three parts that work together:
Lead Engine
The Lead Engine searches the web for real South African businesses matching what you are looking for. Type "Accounting firms in Cape Town" and within seconds you have a list of real companies with their phone numbers, websites, Google ratings, and where possible, decision-maker details. No cold-bought lists, no afternoon lost on Google.
The CRM
The CRM takes those leads and gives you a proper place to manage them. A visual drag-and-drop pipeline shows you where every deal stands. Tasks remind you to follow up, notes capture critical details, and an activity timeline preserves the complete history from first touch to signed contract.
Invoicing Module
The Invoicing module closes the loop. When a lead becomes a client, create a professional tax invoice in under two minutes. South African 15% VAT is handled automatically, the PDF is generated, client email is dispatched, and overdue reminders run on autopilot so you get paid faster.
Everything in one place. Built for the South African market. Priced in Rands.
Why South Africa specifically
South Africa has one of the highest rates of freelance and independent work on the African continent. Designers, developers, marketers, photographers, consultants, and copywriters. These are hundreds of thousands of people who are excellent at their craft and building their own businesses.
Most of them are running those businesses with tools that were never designed for them.
The South African B2B market has its own character. Business relationships here are built differently. Pricing is different. Payment culture is different. The directories and data sources that matter are different from what works in London or New York.
Khanya was built with that context in mind from the very first line of code.
The Lead Engine searches South African business directories, Google Maps listings, and company websites, rather than outdated American directories. The invoicing handles 15% South African VAT. The payment processing uses PayFast, the gateway South Africans actually use. The pricing is designed for South African freelancer income, not San Francisco salaries.
This is not a global product with a South African flag slapped on the landing page.
It was built here, for here.
What we believe
We believe freelancers deserve proper business tools.
Not free-tier scraps from enterprise software. Not tools that assume you have a sales team of 20. A proper, premium tool designed specifically for one person running a real business.
We believe in being honest about what we are.
Khanya is not magic. The Lead Engine does not guarantee you clients. It finds real businesses that you still have to contact, pitch, and win. We give you the best possible starting point. The work is still yours.
We believe South African businesses should be built by South Africans.
Not because international tools are bad. Because no one understands a market better than the people who live and work in it. We are building Khanya from inside the market we are serving.
We believe in building in public.
We launched with real users before we had everything perfect. We share what works and what does not. We read every piece of feedback. The people who use Khanya are building it with us.
How it works under the hood
For the technically curious.
Khanya runs on a modern stack built for reliability and speed.
The application is a Laravel and React SPA hosted on South African infrastructure. The Lead Engine is a Python microservice that runs independently, scrapes data from multiple public sources, deduplicates and enriches it, and streams results back to your browser in real time as they are found.
Every company found by the engine is stored in a shared global database that gets richer with every search any Khanya user runs. This means when someone searches for a business type, the results are already populated and enriched by the global database build-up. The more Khanya grows, the better the data gets for everyone.
Data is encrypted at rest and in transit. We comply with POPIA, the Protection of Personal Information Act, and only collect publicly available business information from public sources.
We do not sell your data. We do not share your leads with other users. Your CRM data is private to your account.
Where we are going
Khanya launched in 2026 as an MVP. Here is what we are building next.
Right Now
- Lead Engine with Google Maps & SA business directories
- Full sales pipeline board
- Invoicing with automatic South African 15% VAT
- PDF generation & automated email sending
- Lead enrichment & decision maker discovery
Coming Soon
- CIPC Director & Company Registration validation search
- WhatsApp Business automated notifications & follow-ups
- AI-powered POPIA-compliant sales pitch generator
- Web tech-stack detection on target lead websites
- Lead list CSV export utility
- Pro plan tier containing unlimited monthly searches
On the Horizon
- Expansion to Nigeria, Kenya, & Ghana directories
- Team & Agency plans for multiple users
- Custom developer API access to our lead database
We share real-time roadmap updates as we ship them. Follow along.
Who we are
Khanya is currently a founder-led product. Built, designed, and shipped by one person who got frustrated enough to do something about it.
We are growing. If you are a South African developer, designer, or marketer who believes in what we are building, we would love to hear from you.
Careers & Feedback
info@getkhanya.comWe are just getting started.
Khanya is in early access. The first users are on the platform now, finding leads, closing deals, and sending invoices. If you are a South African freelancer or agency owner who is tired of managing your sales across scattered tools, we built this for you.
Get started with a 14-day free trial on the Basic plan. No credit card required.