The French South African Tech Labs (FSAT) incubation programme assists over 15 local entrepreneurs per year and has just announced that it will continue offering an intensive incubator programme for local entrepreneurs into 2021. This is due to continued support from (Small Enterprise Development Agency) SEDA, Methys and the French Embassy of South Africa.
Ntokozo Majola, acting CEO of SEDA, reaffirms SEDA’s commitment to supporting entrepreneurship and startup development by supporting FSTA Labs
“Our partnership with Methys and the French Government in the FSAT Labs is an example of a remarkable public/private partnership for the benefit of early stage entrepreneurs. The FSAT Labs have had a great economic and social return track record in terms of job creation, turnover, as well as the focus on black or female tech entrepreneurs. We are very pleased to have extended our partnership through to 2021.”
The programme
The incubation programme supports local entrepreneurs from concept creation, development of product to market fit.
Conducted over a six-month period, the incubation programme selects a number of entrepreneurs and includes workshops, coaching, mentoring and helps to connect participants with potential investors and technology-based developers. Adopting a personal-focused approach of one-on-one coaching has resulted in overall success of the programme.
During the programme, entrepreneurs will gain valuable insight into fostering engagement, fund raising, upscaling their business and how to develop mechanisms to solve customer’s needs through a unique product.
With a mounting success rate, entrepreneurs that have taken part in the incubation programme have raised a reported R12-million in revenue and secured R3-million in funding from external investors.
In an official press statement, FSAT Labs provides further insight into the successes of their innovative incubation programme.
“In August 2020, we completed our most successful season to date. Our season 6 startups (Kweza, Kudoti, Jamii Life, Onebook among 5 others) served 201 customers and made just over R 2 000 000 in revenue which is no small feat. With our focus being on one-on-one coaching sessions for a more personal approach, we totalled 137 coaching sessions among our 9 startups. In the most recent news, Gift Lubele from Kudoti, one of our season 6 startup founders, was crowned BRICS young innovator.”
Networking advantage
As a financial support contributor to the FSAT Labs incubation programme, Methys will provide on-hand advice from its leading digital and consulting firms to participating entrepreneurs.
In addition, participants are provided access to Methys wide network of potential investors through AfricArena, one of the continents premium startup and investor conferences.
Christophe Viarnaud, CEO and Chairman of the Methys group comments on the continued support from SEDA.
“Since 2017, with the support of the Small Business Development Agency and French Tech ecosystem, we built the French South African Tech Labs – a great and resilient platform to enable the talent of our youth to make their business dreams a reality. We are very excited to renew our partnership with SEDA into 2021 to participate in creating the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. We see the promise of a better future in South African early-stage tech startups.”
FSAT Lab seventh incubation programme started at the beginning of October and reports that it has a number of ‘lean’ startups in the pipeline.
