A new enterprise accelerator programme dubbed the South African Business Link to Experts (SABLE) has been launched in US tech hub, Silicon Valley to assist local entrepreneurs in South Africa grow their business and execute their ideas flawlessly, using the tech hub’s resources.
South Africa has shown a lot of promise to the outside world with the export of Tesla’s brilliant and visionary CEO, Elon Musk and outgoing VMware CEO Paul Maritz, alongside many other successful entrepreneurs.
Now Palo Alto’s high-tech hub has taken note, and a consortium of highly knowledgeable and successful South Africans in the place, in London and in other parts in the world, has created SABLE to mentor and consult for “South African companies, entrepreneurs, and institutions seeking to fund or commercialize innovation, as well as enter, grow, and partner in worldwide markets.”
The consultation, which would match South African enterprise with investors, marketing consultants, world-class lawyers, IP licensing experts amongst others would be paid for, but not necessarily in cash.
Donovan Neale-May, an executive director of a marketing council managing over $300 billion annually, and also SABLE’s co-founder and managing partner, commenting on the launch he said: “Businesses can do well in Southern Africa but they can’t really leapfrog to Europe or North America.” He added: “They just don’t have the venture capital infrastructure.”
Neale-May cited the example of Clickatell, the text messaging service which started in South Africa and moved its headquarters to Redwood City before it got its first major funding from venture capitalist, Sequoia Ventures.
The objective of SABLE is to make South Africa globally competitive. Highly successful South Africans in the international community want to impact the nation with their resources.
According to The Next Web, Nils Flaaten, CEO of WESGRO, a marketing, investment and trade agency, who is in partnership with SABLE, said he will source funds and resources from the community of South African expatriates in the Diaspora to arm the local enterprise in SA with the necessary tools and knowledge.
Individuals or Organizations interested in enrolling for the programme can register at SABLE‘s website
