From lab to launch: the quest to build startup success in SA’s innovation capital

Venture capitalist and founder of popular US seed fund Y Combinator Paul Graham once wrote that the recipe for startup “clusters” is having a great university near a town smart people like. Premier of the Western Cape Helen Zille believes this might just be the case for Stellenbosch in South Africa, which echoed the general tone of the evening at the reopening business incubator LaunchLab last month.

Situated about 50km outside of Cape Town in the country’s Winelands, Stellenbosch is not only home to JSE-listed giants such as Mediclinic and Distell, but also transformative tech companies like the instant messaging phenomena, Mxit, public Wi-Fi not-for-profit Project Isizwe and microjobbing service M4JAM.

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