The Nedbank Stellenbosch University LaunchLab has awarded seed funding of R100 000 as well as incubation support to the value of R150 000 to six winners of the Attacq Retail Innovation Entrepreneurs Challenge.
Launch Lab and Attacq ran an entrepreneurial challenge across partner university campuses in the Western Cape and Gauteng region to promote innovation in retail. The challenge was open to all aspiring entrepreneurs from student and non-student communities across the Western Cape and Gauteng area. The ideas were either pitched at participating campuses or submitted online.
The Challenge formed part of the LaunchLab's Breakthrough Innovation Platform that officially started with two briefing workshops held in Johannesburg and at the Nedbank Stellenbosch University LaunchLab.
LaunchLab says it narrowed the submissions to the top ten finalists - who then pitched their retail innovation ideas on 19 October 2016 at the Nedbank Stellenbosch University LaunchLab to a panel of judges. Michael Clampett, head of asset management at Attacq, says Attacq will carefully monitor the development of these six winning business ideas in the next six months to gauge their potential and value-add to their existing clientele.
"Our intention was to access new ideas and create the next breakthrough innovation in retail by addressing the e-commerce needs of our clients and customers. The submission had to enhance the customer's experience of comfort and convenience, as well as solve payment issues within the Attacq portfolio and overcome general operational issues that may arise."
LaunchLab's Breakthrough Innovation Platform is ideal for established businesses that are looking to tap into new markets and future revenue streams by accessing new external breakthrough ideas," says Philip Marais, CEO of LaunchLab. He notes external business ecosystems such as LaunchLab are far better equipped to incubate new creative ideas effectively and efficiently.
"The established business can stick with its proven business model, while LaunchLab helps budding entrepreneurs discover new business models. LaunchLab monitors the progress of their business ideas and mentors the entrepreneur, with assistance from the established business, through the LaunchLab Lift-Off Programme process."
The Attacq Retail Innovation Challenge winners, who will proceed to the Knowledge Acceleration and LaunchLab Lift-Off Programmes, are: Anneli Krige Nel from Slippy for her digital receipt tool, Bradley Hornby from WizzPass for his solution for paying for parking at controlled access parking, JD Naude and Charl Cillie from SwiftPay for a RFID inventory tracking and queue eliminator, Courtney Bentley from Visibiliti Insight for a platform to track revenue, trends and make recommendations and Werner Mostert from Spatial Edge for his solution that will assist shopping centre owners understand and engage with customers using big data and analytics and Jacobus Kriel from Grocer for his EMerging e-commerce with retail solution.
Share