HILARY JOFFE: A venture capital fund poised to make a big difference
The SA SME Fund arose out of a similar effort by business to partner with the government than this week’s
The SA SME Fund, the country’s largest institutional investor in venture capital, has just reached “first close” on its third and newest fund, locking in R700m of financing to invest in start-ups, with the figure likely to increase to more than R1bn.
The news is an interesting counterpoint to this week’s headlines about the partnership that business has formed with the government to try to arrest the slide in SA’s economy. That is because the fund came out of a not dissimilar effort by business leaders eight years ago. Now, they are again trying to work with the government to fix the macro, as they tried to do at the height of the Zuma era economic crisis and again during the Covid-19 crisis. ..
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