Nasdaq and JSE-Listed Karooooo has set its sights on innovation and expansion, headquartered in Singapore and with operations in about 23 countries and over 2.13 million subscribers. The tech tycoon behind it, ZAK CALISTO, accelerated to ai over a decade ago long before the rest of us.



Ask Karooooo Group Chief Executive and Cartrack founder, Zak Calisto, how he has stayed ahead of the curve and he will tell you that innovation is the key. It’s this concept that is seemingly at the core of his professional ethos, and more than 20 years on, the narrative hasn’t changed.



Karooooo, with five o’s, and a reported market cap of around $1.22 billion, provides on-the-ground operations cloud. Cartrack (wholly owned by Karooooo) is a Soft- ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) vehicle-tracking platform that provides insights, real-time data analytics and business intelligence reports. Calisto explains that the business initially addressed telemetry challenges, IoT devices and vehicle theft. But, by 2007, the company’s commercial customers wanted more than just track and trace – they wanted data on the vehicles. “So, we launched our first fleet management platform. We were the first company in South Africa to have our platform on the cloud,” Calisto tells FORBES AFRICA. “Everybody was still at desktop solutions and since then we’ve just continuously evolved our platforms. Today, I think we’ve got one of the most comprehensive operations platforms.



“I think we’ve been doing AI for over 10 years. Clearly, what we are doing is getting better and better at it. I do believe we’ve got very advanced technology for what we’re currently doing. It’s innovation… if we stand still, we die. We’ve got to continuously compound on our innovation capabilities.”



He also explains the interesting story behind the company’s name. Calisto held his shares in Cartrack through holding company Karooooo (sans the five o’s), which was incorporated in Singapore. During the takeover process of Cartrack, this involved the buying out and reinvesting of shareholders, so he sought to acquire the URL for the holding business.



Unfortunately, the owner of the URL wanted “a few million dollars for it” so Calisto had to get creative.



“I said if that’s the case, I’d rather keep the zeros in my bank account and put the zeros on to the name.” And that’s how Karooooo came to be.



The company, which listed on the NASDAQ in 2021, with a secondary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), has operations in about 23 countries spanning Africa, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, the United States and Europe.



According to the company’s Second Quarter 2025 Financial Overview (unaudited), Cartrack subscribers were up 17% to over 2.13 million as at August 31, 2024.



South Africa, in particular, where Calisto founded Cartrack in 2001, saw the number of subscribers increase 16% to approximately 1.6 million for the same period, with subscription revenue growth of 15%.



Calisto also shares his delight at the company’s recently-built office space in Johannesburg, which, according to him, can house around 3,500 employees.



“All these geographies we operate in, I think the room for growth is so obvious, it’s so big. It’s just about us having the capacity to onboard more business.”



At this point, Calisto also harks back to his own early days, the days that he didn’t know he would be heading up such a large business. He studied Mathematics and Statistics at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and Actuarial Science at the University of the Witwatersrand, but indicates he did not finish either degree.



He completed an accelerated training program at Standard Bank from 1986 to 1991.



At the beginning of his journey as an entrepreneur, he faced several notable challenges, though he acknowledges the businesses that were instrumental to the company’s progress.



“Today, our biggest partners in the business are the cell phone networks. They still are. We contribute a lot of revenue to the cell phone providers. I was able to convince them to believe in me and for our past finance. Without them, we would never have been able to get off the ground.”



Entrepreneurs often face these types of challenges but, through them, emerge stronger and often with lessons that they can share with the next generation of change makers. Apart from being prudent with capital allocation, Calisto emphasizes that “culture and your management is key”. “You’ve got to always be agile. Communication is key, and not being scared of making mistakes, provided you fix them quickly – that is critical to success.”

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