Impact Hub has announced it is closing its Johannesburg based co-working space after five years of operation, saying that the facilities are no longer “good enough”.
The organisation said over the past months it has received overwhelming feedback from members and partners that the facilities are not good enough to support the teams working there, prompting a period of “introspection”.
“Having taken into account feedback from members and partners over the past few months and after deep introspection it became apparent that Impact Hub Johannesburg must once again set targets for the next stage of innovation and impact. In short, Johannesburg deserves a world class Impact Hub and in its current form and location it is simply not good enough to do so,” the Impact Hub founders said.
The Hub closed its doors at the end of June.
In particular, the Hub pointed to the emergence of a thriving business incubation and co-working scene in South Africa, saying the new landscape has necessitated Impact Hub to identify its role and value in the sector.
“The emergence of the business development and social innovation sectors have forced Impact Hub Johannesburg to focus internally to understand the value that it plays not only in the City of Johannesburg but also in South Africa as a whole,” the founders said.
Impact Hub said a team is now working behind the scenes to reinvent the organisation, and design a new Hub that the organisation’s partners, and Johannesburg more widely, can be “proud of associating with”.
Aside from the Johannesburg operation, Impact Hub has over the past six months been on an active push across Africa.
Disrupt Africa reported teams from seven countries were selected to take part in its Africa Seed Programme, a six-month incubator designed to support entrepreneurs in opening Impact Hubs across Africa. In May, Impact Hub named the five successful candidates to take part in its its Resilience Africa programme, which also aims to launch hubs and incubation programmes in a number of African countries.
Lillian Nduati, Africa communications coordinator at Impact Hub, recently spoke to Disrupt Africa about the role that hubs should play in Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Nduati said hubs and tech incubators are the support system that ensures entrepreneurs have adequate backing when it comes to accelerating their ideas into viable, scalable businesses.
