Editor's Note: (This story is part of a special focus on South Africa and how it is shaping the future and paving the way for the rest of the continent.)
(CNN) For $1,000 you can be the proud owner of a pregnant cow in South Africa, and track her through a mobile app as she grazes, grows, and gives birth.
Once your calf reaches seven months of age, it is sold to a feedlot or slaughterhouse and the return for the beef is divided among the investors.
"It's a stock exchange environment where the farm is the company, the cows are the stock and the babies are the dividends," Nututhuko Shezi, founder and chief executive of South African startup Livestock Wealth, tells CNN.
Livestock Wealth farms cattle in real-time for a pool of 340 online investors.
This form of "crowd farming" is an alternative option aimed at both African and international investors who can't relate to "imaginary things" like unit trusts, explains Shezi.
A cow, on the other hand, is a very real asset.
"Before there was money, cows were the currency," Shezi tells CNN. "And cows are still a currency in most parts of Africa."
Cows are an integral part of South African DNA, he explains, playing a role in everything from weddings to funerals to ancestral worship.
How does it work?
After purchasing a cow already in calf, or pregnant, online, the investor receives an ownership certificate.
For a monthly fee of approximately $23, Livestock Wealth takes care of the feeding breeding and health of your heifer.
She is expected to produce a calf a year on average, with each pregnancy lasting nine months.
Once suckled, the prized calves are sold to an abattoir or feedlot at a price per kilogram. The average calf weighs approximately 240 kilograms and will sell for just under $400.
From global innovations to local solutions
We take a look at some of South Africa's most innovative start ups. These urban electric cabs --
Mellowcabs -- have an estimated daily range of 110 kilometers (68 miles) and are semi-powered by a solar panel on the roof.
These machines exchange coins and notes of currencies from around the world, saving globetrotters time and money. South African duo Jeff Paterson and Oliver du Toit's idea for
Fourex took off in 2015 when it won Richard Branson's entrepreneurship competition Pitch to Rich.
BeSpecular is an app that allows the visually impaired to submit requests such as asking which sugar jar to pick. The volunteer at the other end of the line replies using a text or audio message, which is read out to the blind person.
This is the world's first networked heat-detector designed specifically for a township environment. "
Lumkani" means "be careful" in isiXhosa, the language of South Africa's second largest ethnic group. The idea came after a huge fire tore through one of South Africa's largest townships.
Lize Hartley created
Plasta, a company that makes plasters of different shades to match the skin colors of South Africa's diverse population.
South African start-up
Drone Scan aims to make warehouse workers' lives easier. Its device, which can be attached to drones, scans bar codes of products on any level.
Mobile transaction company
wiGroup has allowed South Africans to buy coffee with their mobile phones since 2008, way before Apple Pay even existed.
This is one of the world's most Instagrammed coffees. In the first six months after launching at
The Grind in Johannesburg in January 2016, nearly 1 million images with the hashtag #coffeeinacone were liked on the picture-sharing social media site.
Zaid Osman launched
The Sneaker Exchange, a popular event in Cape Town, where people buy and sell their own footwear in 2013. "Sneakers know no color, race or creed -- all individuals from different walks of life can come together for their mutual love of sneakers," he told CNN.
The successful South African mobile app
Pocketslip makes paper slips redundant. It sends digital till slips directly to your phone, so you can keep track of your purchases and find the receipts you need when you want to return those uncomfortable shoes.
South Africa's Etsy,
Hello Pretty, is an e-commerce platform selling handmade local crafts and designs. One of their most popular products is from Bamboo Watch Revolutions, one of the first companies to develop a watch face made from bamboo.
South African entrepreneur Jeffrey Mulaudzi started a business encouraging tourists to discover the country on two wheels. It was in 2010, when South Africa hosted the World Cup and tourism arrivals jumped, that Mulaudzi saw his opportunity. Through his
business, Mulaudzi hopes to connect tourists with the local community.
The ethically conscious crowd-funding platform
Thundafund, launched in 2013, has seen unprecedented success. One of the businesses that kicked off after their campaign on Thundafund is Honest Chocolate, whose co-founders used the 70,000 ZAR ($6,000) they raised to turn their industrial raw chocolate business into a boutique café and shop.
One entrepreneurial couple in Durban, South Africa set up Cappeny Estates, a surprisingly booming strawberry farm despite the hot and humid weather of the region. After being rejected by several banks, the couple eventually secured a loan of $ 1.5 million, which allowed the business to kick off.
Shezi is optimistic that 2017 will be a good year as beef prices have increased 22 percent in the last six months.
"We're projecting between 18 and 20 percent return for beef for our investors this year," he says.
The average annual return, over 20 years, for the Top 40 largest companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is 14.1 percent.
The farm's income is shared equally among the cow owners. Livestock Wealth makes its money from the monthly fees and mark-up on the pregnant cows.
While the monthly fee covers basic insurance on the cow in the event of death from disease, investors can buy add-on life insurance for $4 a month.
Investors can track their cows using the Livestock Wealth app.
When a cow is past her prime and no longer able to breed, it is replaced at no additional cost.
While investors are encouraged to visit their cows in KwaZulu-Natal province, they are able to monitor the day-to-day activities on the farm using Livestock Wealth's mobile application.
Cows currently out of stock
The biggest growing pains for Shezi's business has been finding quality breeding cows.
To date, 340 investors own 680 cows across three farms in Kokstad, Vryheid and Senekal. Livestock Wealth is currently out of stock and says it has a waiting list of investors.
In an attempt to work around this, Shezi is allowing people to invest in the farm before the cows get there, and then using the capital to buy the cows.
"That's our plan so that we don't have a huge cash flow burden restricting our growth."
But top of the agenda is a new investment strategy where investors can buy seven-month old calves, which are grown for three years without hormones and sold for organic meat.
As this will be targeting a more discerning beef buyer, Livestock Wealth can set a higher price for the beef, explains Shezi.
"We're really taking the cow and making it the financial tool it's supposed to be."