Mineworkers Investment Company (MIC) has launched the MIC Khulisani Ventures, a R150 million early-stage investment vehicle targeting black-owned innovative, high growth businesses in South Africa.
MIC Khulisani Ventures will invest in promising high-growth potential companies across all sectors, with the exception of primary agriculture and primary extractive industries. The focus is innovation, namely innovative products or services that disrupt traditional markets, improve efficiencies or respond creatively to existing problems in South Africa.
Speaking on the launch, MIC CEO, Mary Bomela said, “We are thrilled to be introducing a unique offering to a broad-set of black-owned innovative ventures with exponential growth potential. MIC Khulisani Ventures forms part of our investment and transformation mandate at MIC, and through this investment vehicle we hope to add to our investee network future-focused, transformed entities with great promise for growth.”
MIC Khulisani Ventures addresses the significant gap in post-seed funding for businesses that are not plugged into the dominant streams of venture capital networks. Many of these investment-ready ventures tend to be black-owned, with ideas that can shift industries and society, but do not take off due to lack of support. This round of investments, projected to range between R15 million to R30 million per awarded applicant, will meet that need and help spur growth and expansion in South Africa and beyond.
“This offering has been in the making for a couple of years now. We have pulled in relevant partners such as I Am An Entrepreneur to work with us in determining the businesses that are ready for this kind of support. In addition to the capital, we intend to leverage our investee network to open access to markets, networks, experience and skills to catapult awarded businesses to the next level. This bodes well for our portfolio, and the impact in the economy will be profound, especially given the impact of Covid-19,” she concluded.
Applications for MIC Khulisani Ventures are open from 7th July 2021 to 13th August 2021 on khulisani.mic.co.za. Businesses that meet the criteria can apply; black women-owned businesses are especially encouraged to apply.
