Apli exists because the distance between a student who needs funding and the funding that exists for them is made of paperwork, not merit.
Every year, South African companies, foundations and government schemes set aside enormous sums to educate young people. Every year, students who qualify for that money never touch it. Not because they were not good enough, but because they never found the listing, missed the deadline, or ran out of the money and time it takes to certify one more document.
Meanwhile sponsors sit with the opposite problem: applications arriving by email, half incomplete, impossible to compare, and a shortlist that took three months to build.
Both sides want the same outcome. Nobody built the bridge.
A bursary is an investment with a return. Students are not asking for a favour, and sponsors are not doing one. Both are building the same economy.
No student should lose a place at university to a missed form. The process must be short enough that effort goes into studying, not applying.
Students deserve to know a listing is real and a decision is coming. Sponsors deserve to know an applicant's marks and documents are genuine.
Apli is not a jobs board, a social network or a super app. It gets students from "I need funding" to "I am funded." That is the whole mandate.
These are not exceptions. They are what happens when funding reaches someone who was always capable of using it.
Founder & Chairman, African Rainbow Minerals
Funded law studies at Wits. Became the first Black partner at his law firm, then built ARM into a mining major.
President of South Africa
Completed a funded law degree through UNISA. Trade union founder and businessman who rose to Head of State.
Former CEO, Johannesburg Stock Exchange
Funded law studies at Stellenbosch, then a master's at Cambridge. First woman to lead the JSE in 130 years.
Founding Chair of NSFAS · former CEO, FirstRand
Funded studies to qualify as a chartered accountant, among the first Black CAs trained in South Africa.
"The bursary that changes a life is usually not the one nobody funded. It is the one nobody found."
The idea Apli was built on
If you want to be part of it, whether as a student, a sponsor, a university or a partner, we would like to hear from you.