Ten South African startups pitched their concepts yesterday at the culmination of a two-day workshop organised by Saratoga as part of this year’s NetProphet event.
The startups benefited from the expertise and assistance of Permjot Valia, focusing on fundamentals about business and how to handle rapid growth. The course concluded with a pitching event held yesterday, where the startups presented their businesses.
Among the startups to be showcased was Net Returns, a portfolio performance measurement website aimed at helping investors monitor their returns set to launch publicly in August.
Another participating startup, Stribal, seeks to solve the technological and shipping problems of South Africa’s multitude of local artists by creating one unified online marketplace for South African artwork, providing a platform for everything from paintings to kitchenware.
Video Agent facilitates the production of affordable quality video content through its network of freelance videographers, the startup offering the added value of producing complete video content with soundtracks and voice overs.
Commenting on the workshop experience, founder of Video Agent Simon Anderson told HumanIPO: “The workshop was overall very useful. Premjot has a wide and pretty eclectic experience so there were always useful nuggets of insight based on real world examples.”
The best part of the workshop, Anderson said, was the advice gleaned regarding planning for growth, as the company is currently reaching the rapid growth stage.
The other startups presenting at yesterday’s pitching event were online food delivery company Vosto, insurance purchasing site Saratoga Insurance, Now Novel, which seeks to help budding writers produce their first novel, corporate real estate management platform Creda Solutions, psychometric social contact locating website Cliquidity, photography e-learning site Lunch Box, and Cotton Candi – an arts and crafts supplies seller and inspiration site.
