Finding funding is tough

For many potential black business people, specifically in my case as an agripreneur, the ideas and business plans I have in place remain mere concepts because the reality is that:

● Grant funding never covers 100% of the startup costs, so they always want the black entrepreneur to have “skin in the game” through own contribution and/or “debt loan” funding from development finance institutions (DFIs). If our government is truly committed to black empowerment and entrepreneurship, it must introduce concessionary and/or refundable grant funding for black entrepreneurs.

● DFIs also want “skin in the game” or tried and tested business concepts, meaning as an entrepreneur you must find a strategic equity partner and ask them to invest to help you secure the funds. If the DFIs are serious about transformation in key sectors of our economy they will take up equity alongside their debt loan funding in start-ups.

There is just so much “poverty of ambition” in our government grant funding programmes and DFI funding instruments, which hobbles empowerment and entrepreneurship in SA.

In the words of former US president Barack Obama during his Mandela lecture: “It shows a poverty of ambition to just want to take more and more and more, instead of saying, ‘Wow, I’ve got so much. Who can I help? How can I give more and more and more?’” That’s ambition. In his conclusion Obama also said: “We’ve got to bring more resources to the forgotten pockets of the world through investment and entrepreneurship, because there is talent everywhere in the world if given an opportunity.”

Maxhobayakauleza Ngamlana

Via e-mail