Naspers Labs, GrindstoneX Unveil Their Second Cohort of 10 Female Entrepreneurs
The second cohort of GrindstoneX’s growth engineering program, which it co-manages with Naspers Labs, comprises ten female entrepreneurs.
Grindstone was co-founded in 2014 by Knife Capital and Thinkroom with the intention of assisting fast-growing, innovation-driven businesses in expanding their businesses.
However, the youth development program Naspers Labs is run by the global consumer internet corporation and technology investor Naspers.
Grindstone Ventures is spearheading the effort in South Africa to use gender-lens investing to close the gender finance gap.
Companies who meet the requirements of the GrindstoneX accelerator may be eligible for future investment opportunities or additional acceleration programs from the Grindstone network.
10 South African companies were selected for the first batch this year, and an additional 10 have been selected for the second iteration.
Among them are;
- Ambani Africa, an educational gaming and streaming platform founded by Mukundi Lambani;
- Binase Corporation, an educational food, skincare, and travel experience founded by Nabo Binase;
- Featherlinx, founded by Meagan Chauke, is an ICT company that specializes in developing systems and applications for the vulnerable;
- HYHarvest is an agri-tech company founded by Zandile Khumalo.
- inJoin, a technology empowerment company founded by Naledi Sithole that provides cutting-edge technology and architecture to enable organizations to be data-informed and future-proof;
- Makhoba Professional Services is a networking and cabling internet services company founded by Thabile Makhoba;
- MobileGPT, a WhatsApp application that integrates the advanced capabilities of the GPT-4 engine to provide users with a personal AI assistant on the go, was founded by Bertha Kgokong.
- RealPPE Marketplace, a one-stop shop for medical professionals and industrial PPE buyers founded by Lebogang Mashaba;
- African Distribution Technologies, which uses website and app technologies to provide a B2B e-commerce platform to meet the needs of business owners in underserved areas and townships, was founded by Vani Jolly.
Check out the website for more information.
