A big thank you to Dov Girnun of Merchant Capital for gracing our April/May cover of Thriving Magazine. We are delighted with the level of insight he was able to share with our community on what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur. Make sure you watch Thriving TV this month to catch all his video interviews so you can be inspired.
We are so excited to be launching the Funding and Procurement Tour on the 11th of May with, Lebo Gunguluza Founder and Executive Chairman of the Gem (Gunguluza Enterprises and Media) Group. We will be visiting 20 cities in the next two years; connecting and sharing with entrepreneurs about 4th Industrializing their businesses and how to become digital entrepreneurs in this technology age.
Entrepreneurs will be given an opportunity to pitch their businesses in front of a panel of experts and funders. Once they're given the green light, they will then go to the next round where we will pass the due diligence to become funding ready in order to access the 200 million rands in funds available.
During our pitching sessions, we will be introducing entrepreneurs to Procurement departments of corporate South Africa through a meet and greet, once they register on the Thriving Market Place platform, which is aimed at connecting entrepreneurs to corporates to procure services from them, as well as entrepreneurs to resell the corporates products and services.
SMMEs are the solution to our ailing economy and high unemployment rate. With the launch of the 1.4 billion SA SME Fund where 200 SMEs will be supported, 10 significant black businesses and five black entrepreneurs over the next five years. There will be eight funds, three of which will be venture capital funds and one accelerator. The SA SME Fund will be the largest institutional investor in venture capital in South Africa.
Our job will be to recruit as many corporates, funders and financial institutions as we can and expose them to high growth tech entrepreneurs that will give them a reason to distribute the money to entrepreneurs that need it the most. This forms part of our efforts as the Thriving. Network community to help improve the state of the South African economy and address many social challenges including poverty, inequality and unemployment.