SA’s HisWay Labs secures funding to help rebuild rail reliability

The Cape Town-based HisWay Labs, the company behind TrackView rail-integrity monitoring system, has secured funding from technology investment and product development firm Octoco Group as it prepares for international expansion.

Founded in 2018, HisWay Labs designed TrackView from the ground up for an environment where conventional rail equipment simply doesn’t survive. The solar-powered sensor contains no copper cabling and no batteries, the two components that make traditional trackside infrastructure a prime target for theft. 

It is engineered to withstand extreme heat, dust, flooding and deliberate tampering, and to keep monitoring rail integrity and train positioning around the clock without the maintenance burden that legacy systems demand.

Built for the realities of South Africa’s rail network, it is now drawing international attention, and HisWay Labs has taken on strategic investment from Octoco Group to help it prepare for expansion.

TrackView has already earned formal certification and product type approval from the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) and has been deployed commercially in partnership with Siemens Mobility. The technology is now in active field trials in the United States, and HisWay Labs is exhibiting this month at InnoTrans in Germany, the world’s largest transport technology trade fair, to build European distribution and operator partnerships.

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