Grindstone South Africa Accelerator

Grindstone has joined forces with the SA SME Fund, Deloitte, Thinkroom, Knife Capital, Webber Wentzel and Google for Startups. The program is aimed at entrepreneurs who are ready to take their businesses to the next level.

Business support resources and services will include elements of training, corporate advisory, coaching, mentorship and funding. Specific interventions for each company include a structured gap analysis, understanding of the company value system, building a digital go-to-market strategy, financial modelling, intellectual property assessment, strategic and financial valuation as well as populating a data room.

Favorable funding support will also be provided to the 20 Grindstone Companies to enable them to de-risk and close the initial growth gaps identified.

Program benefits

In addition to Knife Capital’s Funding Readiness Course: Find-Make-Grow-Realize, there will be 6 x 1-day workshops over the year…

• Culture & Strategy
• Sales & Marketing
• Market Positioning & Messaging
• Technical
• Finance, Valuation and Exit
• Legal compliance & IP

Through Grindstone, Knife Capital forms long-term partnerships with scale-up entrepreneurs for a shared upside. Grindstone would not be possible if it wasn’t for our Program partners who generously contribute their knowledge, services, time and funding.

Eligibility criteria

To be eligible to join Grindstone, your company needs to be:

• A South African registered company.
• Post-revenue with some customer traction.
• A dynamic team of awesome people.
• Innovative business offering with a clear competitive differentiator.
• Scalable business model.
• At least R500k turnover per annum.
• At least five resources working in the business (permanent employees or outsourced / consultants/services).