Local business incubator, SiMODiSA has developed Venture Central, South Africa's digital home for entrepreneurs.
According to the company, Venture Central aims to become South Africa's online community for entrepreneurs of all sectors. The portal connects entrepreneurs with resources and provides a range of business services, tools and support needed to build successful businesses.
The platform's main objective, according to the company, is to offer an interactive portal of all other South African SME portals, supply entrepreneurs with regularly aggregated business information and opportunities, provide tools, templates and resources, provide access to entrepreneurship networking, mentorship and market opportunities and to list available workspaces, incubators and accelerators in the entrepreneurs area.
This way entrepreneurs can easily navigate the ecosystem and find support uniquely tailored for their business ideas, adds SiMODiSA.
Matsi Modise, MD of SiMODiSA, explains: Venture Central is an entrepreneurial community based platform with curated content from the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Various organisations and entrepreneurial supporters will be able to feed information, opportunities and important links into the portal. The portal will be managed, monitored and regularly updated for the latest tools, resources, events, workspaces and trends in the various industries."
Entrepreneurship, notes SiMODiSA, can be an overwhelming journey faced with an influx of information, advice from every corner but with no distinct direction in how to succeed and where to actually find what you need.
The current South African entrepreneurship ecosystem faces significant challenges, such as rising unemployment, regulatory constraints, skills deficit, and a lack of access to markets and funding. This necessitates a solid solution to cater to the requirements of entrepreneurs, adds the company.
"Venture Central provides industry related research, business opportunities such as latest incubation, acceleration programs and networks such as national entrepreneurship events, access to funding (find portal), access to market information and links (supply chain network) a strong foundation for a solution to assist, facilitate and integrate the critical resources required to develop businesses at various stages (idea, start-ups, growth, accelerate) and stimulate economic growth. The proliferation of mobile technology also provides the opportunity to extend services to previously excluded entrepreneurial groups in rural and peri-urban areas," Modise points out.
In May, Gauteng's provincial government officially unveiled the Maxum Digital Hub, its facility aimed at encouraging participation of youth and township entrepreneurs in the digital space.
In July, The Awethu Project, a local enterprise that supports entrepreneurs, introduced a mobile app aimed to provide virtual incubation to entrepreneurs and those aspiring to one day run their own businesses.
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