T
he Small Enterprise Development
Agency (Seda), under the Department
of Small Business Development, is
leveraging the capabilities of hardware tech
nology investor and incubator Savant Tech
nologies to help science and technology
inven tors start businesses.
The partnership was launched at the Savant
offices, in Cape Town, in October. Engagement
between Seda and Savant started in 2015
to enable the latter to focus on scaling up
opera tions and broadening the pipeline to
include innovators in the broader Cape Town
com mu n it y.
Entrepreneurship plays a critical role in eco
nomic growth and improving the standards
of living in many countries, including South
Africa. Business owners provide opportunities
for innovation and increased employment, in
addition to the creation of new markets, says
Seda CEO Mandisa Tshikwatamba.
“While software has garnered much of the
investment and attention in the tech space,
hardware inventors are slowly gaining ground
internationally. Hardware technology incuba
tors, like Savant, are looking for the creator
and, ultimately, producer of the next Rooivalk
attack helicopter, Kreepy Krauly pool cleaner,
Tesla electric car and, perhaps, even the next
SpaceX,” she says.
Incubated Enterprise
Savant is a specialised, commercially focused
hardware technology incubator founded in
2005 by CEO Nick Allen.
The busi ness model, which includes an
equity stake in the incubated enterprise, was
designed to nur ture South African startups in
science and technology innovation by focusing
on projects with global market appeal and
strong intellectual property protection, as well
as technology capable of meeting the require
ments of the target market.
To date, Savant has secured R106million in
startup and seed funding. Of the startups
incubated, 88.9% have become fully fledged
businesses and the total revenue earned by
Savantincubated companies is R2.51billion.
Some of the companies supply retailers
including Woolworths, Dischem, Spar and
Clicks.
Prior to founding Savant, Allen, a qualified
engi neer and veteran entrepreneur of South
Africa’s postdemocracy development eco
system, worked for public and private
small, mediumsized and microenterprise
incubators.
The experience led him to identify untapped
potential in a segment of South African inven
tors, namely those who wanted to build busi
nesses around their innovative ideas related
to physical hardware technology, but lacked
the necessary knowhow to start, run and scale
the enterprises.
Additionally, hardware technology, com
pared with software development, is labour
intensive.
“Contributing to muchneeded economic
growth in South Africa, the ‘startup’
hard ware renaissance is well on its way
to cultivating a new breed of jobcreating
manufacturing busi nesses that have a bias
towards innovation, con tinuous improvement
and exploring new mar ket opportunities,” said
Tsh i k wat a mba.
42 ENGINEERING NEWS | December 8–14, 2017 RA
NEWS&INSIGHT
BUSINESS INCUBATION
Nurturing Inventors
Small business agency in venture to incubate tech hardware startups
SCHALK BURGER | CREAMER MEDIA SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
ENGINEERING NEWS COUPON ON PAGE 42 E472445
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