Sw7 – Africa’s first Virtual B2B Technology Business Accelerator

Sw7 and Amazon Web Services team up to deliver Africa’s first Virtual B2B Technology Business Accelerator

CAPE TOWN –November 14, 2019— Sw7 and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have teamed up to introduce Africa’s first Virtual B2B Technology Business Accelerator.  The new virtual accelerator will assist Founders of B2B/Saas Technology businesses looking to scale on AWS, offering additional business support through primarily digital channels.  Founders of startups often ask for guidance on how to scale and build their businesses, this includes skills such as pitching, creating effective go-to-market strategies and investor readiness.  Through AWS Activate, AWS provides startups with the low cost, easy to use infrastructure needed to grow and scale. With the AWS Activate program, startups get access to the resources they need to quickly get started on AWS – including credits, training, and support. 

Feedback we have received from a number of technology cohorts tells us that traditional accelerator programs are often exclusive, inflexible, interrupt operations and serve less than 1% of technology markets, requiring time-off for extended periods to attend boot-camps, on dates and times outside of their availability. 

“We are excited to team up with AWS, to offer an inclusive, community-supported, data-driven approach that assists B2B technology businesses to effectively scale” says Odette Jones, Sw7 Co-founder.  “Businesses pay for the level of support they want without giving up equity and avoid the constraints imposed by traditional programme-centric approaches.  This cost-based model is appealing – it’s the best of all worlds”. 

Keith Jones, Sw7 Co-founder says “The OKR (Objective Key Result) structure Sw7 uses, enables us to move away from a programme-centric curriculum and batch-based ‘transmit’ approach, and moves to a more business needs and outcomes-based approach where the content, tools and templates are curated for each business, offering market and sector relevant support in context.  This makes engagements with our mentor pool more effective as they have clarity about the status and goals of each business. High growth is all about focus and execution once you have a clear direction. Sw7 offers a strategy execution approach to support this.”

There are three levels of membership and support – Business Community, Business Growth & Business Scale.

Business Community is an inclusive community for technology businesses and Founders at all life stages that offers shared insights & learnings, business assessments, additional sector and life stage relevant content and reports at no cost to the business.  Businesses get up to US$3K of AWS Activate credits for up to one year including 2 months of AWS business support.

Business Growth offers access to Sw7 hosted mentor-led digital dial-ins & digital workshops, full access to the Sw7 acceleration platform which includes sector and life stage relevant tools, templates, content, reports and AWS hosting credits of up to US$10K and up to AWS US$5K business support for one year.  This level is aimed at technology business at all life stages wishing to move their business forward in a more structured way and costs US$50 pcm with an initial payment of three months. 

Business Scale offers one-on-one strategy workshops, access to Sw7 hosted mentor sessions, Board Advisory, Strategy Setup and Execution through the Sw7 platform, US$15k Activate credits for up to 2 years to build on AWS, with the possibility of increasing the AWS Activate credits to US$100K for eligible businesses, tech support for up to $5k for dedicated technical support on-line for up to 1 year, “Startup Spotlight” nominations for free PR and access to new markets with Startup Marketplace (SaaS Sellers market).  Capital Connect offers access to a global pool of VC’s. This is for ISV, B2B, SaaS post-revenue technology businesses with some traction and will be limited to twenty businesses for the three-month pilot phase. 50% of the Business Scale fees are covered by AWS so founders will only pay US$200 monthly for 3 months paid upfront, not the listed US$400 per month.

Schedule

Access to Business Community will be open to all applicants and will be offered on an ongoing basis.  The initial phase of Business Growth & Business Scale will be offered to founders based in South Africa.  Recruitment will be open until the 15th of December, the programme will start on the 13th of January 2020 and will run until the 30th April 2020 with a two-week break over Easter.  The intention is to run this as an ongoing offering to businesses throughout Africa. Apply here. (www.sw7.co/amazon)

About Sw7

Sw7 partners with technology businesses, portfolios and their investor networks pre and post fundraising to prepare for technology business valuations, to fundraise & find matched funding, to provide business support, board advisory, to assist with off-shore expansion and sale of the business.  Sw7 are one of the leading technology accelerators in Africa, having run 9 cohorts including the first Fintech Accelerator in Africa and have worked with over 300+ technology businesses & Founders from early-stage to growth, funding & exit with shared insights from 100+ experienced Technology Founder CEOs.  The Sw7 LinkedIn group in Africa has over five thousand members & partners include Amazon, Microsoft & Google.