Clarity over cleverness
We write code and contracts that other humans can read. No over-engineering, no jargon, no surprises on the invoice.
// WHO WE ARE
A small studio, long-term obsessed with shipping great software.
We've spent a decade helping South African teams build software that's faster, safer, and more useful than what they had before. We're still doing it.
// OUR STORY
Ten years, one mission.
XenoLabs started in a single-room office with one conviction — that South African businesses deserved world-class software, built locally, at a fair price.
A decade later we're still a deliberately small studio. No bloated management, no offshored delivery teams, no junior-only squads. Just senior engineers, designers, and product folk who care whether your software works on Monday morning.
We've shipped custom platforms for retailers, logistics firms, clinics, fintechs, and government. We've built AI that saves weekly hours, apps downloaded across three continents, and internal tools that quietly replaced spreadsheets doing five-figure-a-month damage. We're proud of the work. We'd love to show you.
see our work
10+
YEARS OF
SHIPPING
SHIPPING
0
Projects shipped
0
Clients partnered
0
Team members
0%
Retention rate
// VALUES
What we stand for.
Four principles that show up in every proposal, every pull request, every demo.
Ship weekly, learn faster
Working software in production beats perfect software in dev. We demo every Friday and deploy every week.
Senior-led, always
No junior-only squads, no pass-the-parcel. The engineer you meet on day one is the one writing your production code on day 100.
Built to outlast us
Every project gets docs, tests, and a runbook. We want your team to be able to fire us and still run the software perfectly.
// THE TEAM
The people building it.
A tight-knit team with decades of combined experience across software, design, and AI.
AM
Anele Mokoena
Founder & CTO
Fifteen years in platform engineering. Ex-fintech, ex-adtech. Still writes production code.
TN
Thandi Nkosi
Head of Design
Product designer obsessed with clarity. Built design systems for 40+ launched products.
PV
Pieter van Wyk
Lead Mobile
React Native + Swift veteran. Shipped apps to 2M+ downloads across iOS and Android.
NK
Naledi Khumalo
AI Lead
ML engineer — former researcher. Builds LLM-powered tools that actually ship.
// MILESTONES
A decade in motion.
2014
Founded
Anele starts XenoLabs from a one-room office in Cape Town with a single laptop and a single client.
2017
First 25 clients
Team grows to 6. First international engagements — clients in Kenya, Namibia, Zimbabwe.
2020
Mobile practice
Mobile team spun up. First React Native app reaches 100k downloads in 90 days.
2023
AI practice
LLM-powered automations shipped to production. First enterprise AI engagement.
2024
Today
14 people, 120+ projects shipped, 97% client retention. Still a small studio, still shipping weekly.
Let's build the next chapter.
Hiring for a project? Curious about joining the team? We're always open for good conversations.