What the firm is, in plain terms.
Pivot Partners is an advisory and venture firm founded in 2024 by Chris Lombard and Nicolò Pudel. We advise leadership teams, we take equity in businesses we want to help run, and we keep our own engineering team so the AI gets built rather than recommended.
- Founded
- 2024
- Founders
- Chris Lombard and Nicolò Pudel
- Where we work
- South Africa and internationally
- Sectors
- Retail, wine and trade, wellness
- Legal entities
- Pivot Partners GmbH · Germany · HRB 290832South Africa · CRN 2024/725503/10
- Contact
- [email protected]
Pivot Advisory
Fee-based work for clients we hold no equity in. Operating strategy with the leadership team, then a senior product and engineering team embedded for the length of the build. How advisory engagements run →
Pivot Ventures
Businesses we take equity in and help operate. Two active ventures: Port2Port, South Africa’s largest fine-wine marketplace, and CellarMe. The ventures →
Pivot AI Lab
The engineering team that builds the AI in both. Agentic workflows, internal copilots, automation, and customer-facing product. Its work is written up as case studies. Read the case studies →
Who we work with
Advisory clients include Pick n Pay and Boxer in South African grocery retail, Meridian Wine Merchants in fine-wine distribution, and Formula Fig in North American wellness. Port2Port and CellarMe are Pivot Ventures companies, where we hold equity and sit on the operating side. The full list →
Who does the work
Chris Lombard spent twenty years in M&A, a decade at Standard Bank and another at Distell. Nicolò Pudel founded and ran digital agencies and took a startup through to acquisition. The wider team is led by Gerhard Olivier as CTO, with Amber Rose Mostert as Operating Partner and CEO of Port2Port. The people →