Cape Town, 25 February 2020 — Corporate South Africa, through its investment in the SA SME Fund, is enabling the commercialisation of technology innovations developed by SA universities through its R150 million investment into the University Technology Fund (UTF).
This is the first university technology fund in Africa.
R25 million will be allocated to pre-commercialisation funding, which includes proof of concept and technology development support and R125 million for commercialisation.
Says Ketso Gordhan, CEO of the SA SME Fund: “This investment is intended to unlock the vast potential located inside our world-class universities by commercialising South African technology. This will not only create viable businesses and jobs, but will also encourage a culture of innovation throughout universities in South Africa. We are exceptionally excited about the potential that this creates.”
South Africa punches above its weight in research capability, having doubled its output since 2000. Where the country lags is in the commercialisation of the research and patents, which is the gap that the SA SME Fund’s investment is aiming to address.
While the UTF’s initial university partners are University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University, who provide pipeline for the Fund and each contributed R20 million to co-invest with the UTF, the SA SME Fund’s next step is to expand the programme to universities across South Africa.
The UTF will be managed by Stocks and Strauss, an independent third party Fund Manager. The Founders and Directors of Stocks and Strauss, Wayne Stocks and Daniel Strauss have a deep understanding of technology and the early stage investment space, having been investors, founders and operationally involved in early stage technology businesses.
Wayne Stocks, Partner at Stocks and Strauss, says: “We are excited to work with Universities to commercialise the world-class intellectual property that has, and is being developed. We will work with them to leverage their research to drive sustainable growth, profit and transformation within the University ecosystem and the broader economy.”
Link to a short UTF introductory video: https://youtu.be/vZmD0viamkE
Follow SA SME Fund on:
Twitter: @SASMEFUND
LinkedIn: SASMEFUND
Website: www.sasmefund.co.za
About The Author: Samantha
Samantha Perry is the owner and founder of SJ Perry PR, a small, independent agency that specialises in providing public relations and media relations services to small to medium-sized businesses. She recently served as the JHB Agency Lead for Irvine Partners, an integrated public relations and marketing agency. She has over 20 years' of experience writing for a range of media - print and online - mainly in the ICT sector including Computing SA (editor), ComputerWeek, and Brainstorm magazine (editor). In her capacity as a PR professional and consultant, she has and does work with a variety of companies including Google (South Africa & Nigeria), Salesforce, CLEVVA, Euphoria Telecom, Paymenow and Tiger Content (UK). She also has a Masters degree in ICT Policy & Regulation. She served on the IAB SA Marketing Council as the PR rep, has worked as an independent telecoms researcher for some of the analyst houses in that field and was regularly called upon to comment on telecoms issues in the press. Nowadays she can be found commenting on women in tech issues in the press and speaking at conferences on the subject and the issues women in the sector face.
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