Pan-African incubator programme, the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), is expanding its presence on the continent by launching two new incubator spaces in SA and Nigeria.
This week, the MEST programme announced the launch of new incubator spaces that will be located in Cape Town and Lagos - an effort it describes as bringing together the African tech community.
According to a statement, MEST incubators in Cape Town and Lagos will act as an extension of the Accra community, offering entrepreneurs the same support, skilled staff, mentorship, network and resources as in Ghana.
The spaces will add co-working as a new pillar to the MEST offering. The co-working offering will invite local entrepreneurs to apply to join the MEST incubator space, opening the community up to start-ups that did not graduate from the MEST training programme, reads the statement.
Established in 2008 by the Meltwater Foundation, MEST provides training, investment and incubation to aspiring tech entrepreneurs in Africa and with bridges to Silicon Valley.
The core pillars of MEST include a one year technology training programme for African entrepreneurs, followed by potential seed funding and incubation for MEST portfolio companies in Pan-African incubator spaces.
MEST's Cape Town incubator will be located at the Woodstock Exchange.
"As a South Africa-based VC, we're thrilled about MEST's South African expansion," says Andrea B"ohmert, partner and co-founder of Knife Capital.
"MEST has a unique offering that combines capacity-building with access to funding and a global network, in an effort to create globally successful entrepreneurs. Their presence will certainly add to the dynamic start-up community in Cape Town and further fuel growth on the continent," notes B"ohmert.
MEST MD Aaron Fu adds: "We're extremely excited to enter the Nigerian and South African markets with the launch of our new incubator spaces. Lagos and Cape Town are home to an enormous amount of ambitious tech talent with massive potential. We also look forward to welcoming companies from the larger local community to join our Pan-African network of like-minded entrepreneurs."
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