On 20 November 2018, South African venture capital firm Knife Capital announced the 12 companies chosen for the fourth Grindstone Accelerator programme, a cohort it says will receive support to sharpen growth plans and execution.
The accelerator is aimed at businesses that are already past the earliest stage and are now trying to build a stronger base for expansion. Knife Capital said the programme is designed to help founders test growth assumptions against what their companies can realistically deliver.
Andrea Bӧhmert, Knife Capital Investment Partner, said the firm had originally intended to work with 10 SMEs, but expanded the intake after seeing the quality of the applications and the corporate partnerships it had secured. She said the participating companies were all at a tipping point and would use the programme to validate their next steps.
The 12 companies selected are Allxs, Cradle Technology Services, Ctrl, Digger App, Kudos Africa, OneCart, Old School Group, Sentian, Sparkfolios, Suritec, Sxuirrel and Vizibiliti Insight Africa.
Knife Capital described Allxs as an NFC-enabled closed-loop cashless payments and experience management platform. Cradle Technology Services offers the Granite Warehouse Management System, while Ctrl is a digital short-term insurance broker platform. Digger App uses AI for recruitment matching, Kudos Africa provides ESG assessment tools, and OneCart operates an online personal shopping assistant for household goods.
The remaining businesses in the cohort are Old School Group, a multi-brand sports group; Sentian, a smart security platform that adds intelligence to existing alarm systems; Sparkfolios, an online toolkit for performance and incentive management; Suritec, a data solutions company focused on analytics and systems integration; Sxuirrel, a peer-to-peer marketplace for extra space; and Vizibiliti Insight Africa, which develops alternative credit scoring methods for the financial services industry.
Knife Capital said this year’s Grindstone programme is being backed by entrepreneurial-minded organisations including FNB, Webber Wentzel, Creative CFO, Thinkroom Consulting, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft 4Afrika, M&C Saatchi Connect, GMG Technology, Matchboxology and Billybo Group. The partners are intended to help open market-access opportunities for the participating startups.
The firm also said it was in partnership discussions to launch a Johannesburg-based Grindstone programme in 2019.
Previous Grindstone alumni include Quicket, Picsa, SeaMonster, Electrum, WhereIsMyTransport, Custos and iKubu, which was later acquired by Garmin.
