Business accelerator Grindstone has partnered with software giant Microsoft to launch Grindstone Africa, a start-up accelerator programme, to boost digital innovation across Africa.
Grindstone, co-owned by Knife Capital and Thinkroom, runs growth engineering programmes that assist scalable businesses to prepare for funding readiness and customer acquisition to enable their growth.
It is expanding its programme with the launch of the Grindstone Africa virtual accelerator. “Africa is destined to become the next international technology hub,” says Gerald Maithya, SME and start-ups lead: Africa Transformation Office at Microsoft,
He adds the Grindstone Africa programme “will enable some of the best innovative start-ups and technology leaders of tomorrow on the continent, helping build scalable businesses for the future”.
The inaugural Grindstone Africa programme will see 10 scale-up companies participate in highly-concentrated, bespoke interventions based on business needs, with a focus on those companies that are building towards a favourable liquidity event.
The four-month programme will see interventions in product development, technology optimisation, customer acquisition and preparing for further fund raises.
“The success of our programmes is rooted in expert partner contributions, and the Microsoft link will greatly boost our technology support to the scale-ups coming through our Grindstone Africa programmes,” says Keet van Zyl, founding partner at Knife Capital.
“Robust tech, underpinning an ambitious growth strategy, is one of the key differentiators of a scaling business.”
Grindstone Africa is open for applications for the first intake and is looking for the best African technology scale-ups to apply.
The accelerator says companies that are raising follow-on series A rounds will benefit greatly from the bespoke approach.
It notes the partnership with Microsoft will assist in supporting the participating scale-ups with technological insights, which aid business growth, impact job creation and influence economic impact at large.
Grindstone points out it will greatly increase activities in the next year by expanding into the rest of Africa and beyond, in its efforts to engineer growth for scale-ups.
“Africa is poised for exponential growth across the start-up ecosystem, and we are excited to add to this growth through our combined efforts as an ecosystem,” says Catherine Young, managing partner at Grindstone.
“We are also expanding our offer into the market with our newly-launched Grindstone Academy, where we share relevant knowledge with start-ups and scale-ups that want to further expand their knowledge on how to grow and scale their businesses.”
Interested African companies that are post-revenue and have a business that is scalable, with at least a post-seed or series A round of funding completed, can apply here.
Share