New fund to boost businesses

Small Business ConnectA new seed fund rolled out by the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) will help boost entrepreneurs with bright new ideas that need funding.

It is the first-such fund in South Africa as the country joins a number of emerging countries that already use small grants to help entrepreneurs fund the initial proof of concept stage for new ideas.

Bongi Gumede, TIA’s general senior manager of business development and strategic partnerships, says while the fund is operating at some universities the agency is still in discussions with other universities as well as provincial development agencies through which it plans to offer seed grants of up to R500 000 per entrepreneur.

The seed grants would cover things such as initial proof of concept, prototype development, sourcing of intellectual property (IP) opinions, production of market samples, support of certification activities, piloting and scale-up of techno-economic evaluations, primary market research, as well as business plan development.

In very special circumstances, an allocation of up to R1 million will be considered.
So far R25 million has been set aside for the programme, but Gumede says the agency’s board might allow a further R30 million allocation to the programme.

The idea is that techno-entrepreneurs that need funding will be able to approach these agencies, which would then forward names to TIA for approval of these grants.

For entrepreneurs to qualify for TIA funding, projects must hold significant potential for further investment.

funding, , small business finance, , TIA

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  • Pontsho Jeanette Thobi

    I also need funding as I manufacture cosmetics products so that I can be able to supply