Thanks for starting a great program, I have been following it for a while, and now I feel my Startup is at a point where we can actively contribute to this community.
I have a question i would like some advice on.
My company has recently begun to commercialize the theories that I came up with during my BTech and Masters (still on going) studies.
We have developed prototypes of this concept, and filed for trademark protection.
We have contacted Seda and they have evaluated the company and the product and have conducted the Critical Planning Exercise. They rated the Company very highly and we are finalizing discussions on how they can further help us.
We are in the process of finalizing distribution channels who would activity promote this product to there clients.
Up unitll now i have been finacing this company from my pocket. However as it has been agreed with Seda we need to bring other developers on board as well as establishing a decent infrastructure. This has to be done to bring our product to launch ready status, as the inital evaluation and agreements have shown we will have a very large userbase. Because we will charge users for the system we can give them beta software.
As we all know this costs money. Seda have put me in touch with various VC firms however they don't understand software. Its bit different to financing a back yard welder or a small manufacturing business.
Is there any company that you could recommend that would be interested in something like this.
It does not have to be equity finance, it can be a low interest loan or something of that nature.
Angel investors and private seed funders are hard to come by, as we don't have established networks yet here in SA to reach them. Hopefully this will change with the introduction of initiatives like the Silicon Cape.
What VC firms have you seen so far? Some like 4Di Capital specialise in software and have a seed fund for early-stage.
Theres also http://www.crowdfunding.co.za/ I have sent an email to contact there outlining my rough ideas but haven't received a response yet, but it looks like its being setup still so they might still be working on the concept hence no reply yet, but it looks promising and sounds like it might be ideal for your startup Gary. Good luck