The Design Innovation Seed Fund (DISF) has opened grant applications for South African entrepreneurs with pre-revenue innovations.
The fund supports scalable innovations with up to R800 000, assisting recipients to improve designing, building of prototypes and validating assumptions around the technical and market-related challenges.
Since 2014, the DISF, which is a project of the Craft and Design Institute (CDI), with investment funds provided by the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) and the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT), disbursed R15.8 million in grant funding, with 26 projects completed.
Some of the past beneficiaries includeCape Aerospace Technologies, BioMedical Engineering Consulting, Disa Medinotec, Legal Connection and GoMetro.
In the current funding cycle, grants are open to early-stage small and medium enterprises with operations in agritech, biotechnology and health construction; advanced manufacturing technology; low-carbon technology; renewable energy; ICT and software engineering.
“We have put a significant amount of work into the grant offering, not only ensuring good governance and appropriate monitoring and evaluation measures, but realising real and sustainable impact with the businesses we support,” says Erica Elk, group CEO of CDI.
“Ask any innovator what holds them back from developing their new products and growing their business and they will tell you that it is the lack of resources that prevents them the freedom to take the next steps.
“This is exactly what the DISF provides – seeding an innovator’s next phase and launching them on a path towards commercialisation. Very few South African inventions are supported. Over the last eight years, the DISF has managed to provide financial support to inventors.”
The DISF support and funding has received praise and gratitude from beneficiaries for enabling them to transform their entities.
Justin Coetzee of GoMetro comments:“The funding enabled us to offer a product concept, build it in prototype form, and do some customer development and field work.”
GoMetro, a mobility app, now generates R60 million annual revenue, with 87 people on its payroll.
Heidi Wilson of BioMedical Engineering Consulting says: “The funding has enabled us to build our first complete system, to have the first round of cadaver trials in the lab and receive good feedback.
“We are now in the second phase of design revision and are making minor refinements. Ryan Rode, CDI Capital’s manager, has always been extremely helpful in assisting us to meet TIA requirements.”
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