South African accelerator Grindstone has partnered USAID Southern Africa Mobilising Investment to launch a bespoke two-year programme to “redefine startup and scale-up support in South Africa”.
Grindstone, founded in 2013 and co-owned by Knife Capital and Thinkroom Limited, is a structured entrepreneurship development programme that assists high-growth innovation-driven companies to get the fundamental building blocks in place to scale quickly and become sustainable and fundable. It has successfully completed 16 accelerators to date.
Selected by USAID Mobilising Investment from among 13 grantees in Southern Africa, Grindstone will implement a new programme that will support 40 startups annually, recruiting from Grindstone alumni and other startups and scale-ups in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The first cohort will begin in July, with selected ventures receiving mentorship and expert coaching combined with back-office services that startups often overlook, such as finance, marketing and branding, operations, legal, and technology. It will incorporate Grindstone Boost, a dynamic back-office solution that will help startups elevate their operations, strengthen their financial foundation, work on their brand presence, and harness the power of technology to scale efficiently.
“Companies can only truly scale and reach their full potential from a base of solid fundamentals. Accurate financial reporting and forecasting is a sign that these fundamentals are in place. Grindstone Boost will greatly enhance the quality of robust financial records and modelling, which in return will enable improved investment decisions for both us as VCs and the potential investee companies,” said Keet van Zyl, co-founder of Grindstone and partner at Knife Capital.
The planning and development of the Grindstone Boost back-office services will continue through to the application and recruitment phase over May and June, where Grindstone will recruit the first cohort of startups. A rolling intake of cohorts will continue over the next two years.
