Gauteng is hosting a funding fair on 25 and 26 March at Emperors Palace.
The inaugural Gauteng Funding Fair is a partnership between Deloitte and the Gauteng Provincial Government.
The intention is to facilitate face-to-face contact between project promoters, entrepreneurs and business development bodies, venture capital and private equity investors as well as debt funders.
Teaching treps how to get funding
The event aims to educate entrepreneurs on how to turn ideas into bankable business plans that have a greater likelihood of attracting the right type of funding and investment.
The fair also provides a pre-screened pool of projects for potential funders seeking bankable projects to fund.
Gaba Tabane, who serves as Deloitte Consulting’s public sector industry leader, says that one of the biggest challenges in funding is to help connect funders to the right type of bankable projects, and not necessarily a lack of funding.
Mandla Nkomfe, MEC for finance in Gauteng, says, “The Gauteng Funding Fair will allow the province to demonstrate its leadership as a centre for developing entrepreneurs.”
“By bringing funders and entrepreneurs under one roof, we seek to stimulate conversations that will lead to greater opportunities and job creation in the province.”
Three areas of focus
The Funding Fair is a series of three events with different focus areas for project promoters and entrepreneurs.
These focus areas are:
- Corporate – funding for projects requiring more than R20 million
- Infrastructure
- SMMEs – funding for projects requiring less than R20 million.
The Corporate and SMME events cater for projects across all industries and sectors.
The Infrastructure event aims to show aspiring industrialists ways to take advantage of programmes such as the government’s Strategic Infrastructure Projects.
Both funders and entrepreneurs can obtain more information here.