Karooooo (Cartrack)
👤 Zak Calisto (Ran a vehicle-tracking distributor for seven years, then founded Cartrack in 2001; owns about 58% and runs it profit-first, no VC.)🌐 site
Zak Calisto turned South African car theft into a full-stack tracking SaaS across 20+ countries and 2.8M subscribers.
Will it work? · our read
Quietly profitable. It owns the whole stack in markets US giants ignore, keeps about 95% of recurring revenue, and stays profitable while funded rivals run at a loss.
01How the money moves
Install a Cartrack GPS unit in each fleet vehicle
→
Fleet runs daily on the SaaS platform: tracking, safety, jobs
→
Charge a low monthly per-vehicle subscription — 2.8M subs
02The numbers
$335M ARREstimateARR run-rate (Q1 FY27)
May 2026source:
ZAR5,432M
All from the Q1 FY2027 filing (quarter ended 31 May 2026); ARR is up about 32% in USD year on year. SEC 6-K
About $335M ARR, growing about 20% a year; FY2026 group revenue about R5.5B (about $300M).
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See a full teardown, free → ImportYetiSourcesSources last checked 8 October 2026
SEC 6-K (Q1 FY2027 results): ARR USD335M, 2,804,694 subscribersstockanalysis.com — Karooooo (KARO) revenue R5,479M FY2026, R4,567M FY2025Wikipedia — Zak Calisto: founded Cartrack 2001, about 58% stakeWikipedia — Karooooo: JSE 2014, relisted 2021, SaaS vehicle tracking
The headline figure is Karooooo's ARR of USD335 million (ZAR5,432 million) for the quarter ended 31 May 2026, from its Q1 FY2027 results filed with the SEC on Form 6-K — first-party and STATED (a furnished press-release exhibit, not an audited filed statement). ARR is a recurring run-rate, not recognised revenue; FY2026 group revenue was about ZAR5.5 billion (about USD300 million, per SEC filings via stockanalysis). Karooooo bundles a GPS device with each subscription, so it is not pure software, but subscriptions are about 98% of Cartrack revenue and the company reports the business as SaaS. Founder story and the about-58% stake are from Wikipedia; competitor prices and the reach bars are our read, not revenue. verified:true (SEC filing). We never score you.