Call for expression of interest: service providers

E SQUARED ENTREPRENEUR SUPPORT SERVICE PROVIDER

E Squared is a South African Impact Investor, established through the auspices of Dr Allan Gray, that provides capital and value-creating post-investment support to Allan Gray Fellows (“Fellows”) through our two core programs namely Pathways and E Squared Ventures (“E2V”). These programs aim to support and invest in high-growth, high-impact businesses led by responsible entrepreneurs with the intention of creating meaningful employment opportunities and, in turn, alleviating poverty.

Pathways is a business incubation and acceleration program through which Fellows operating early-stage ventures can receive direct funding as well as non-financial support to systematically build robust, investable businesses. 

E2V is our funding vehicle to: 1) fund start-ups and growth-stage businesses founded by Fellows, and 2) to drive ongoing value creation through post-investment support for these businesses.

Due to our sector-agnostic investment process as well as early-stage support of business ventures, our Pathways and E2V businesses come in many forms, from diverse sectors, at various stages of development, and with vastly varied founder experience and business needs. Consequently, these businesses all require support in thinking through and working on various aspects of their businesses at different times, based on their stage of development, industry, business type, and specific strengths and areas of development.  

With this in mind, we are looking to develop a panel of freelance individual service providers on whom we can draw to meet our venture support needs as and when they arise. These needs will vary by business and by programme; we have, however, identified a number of common areas – as listed below – in which we anticipate requiring service providers to support us in our value creation activities for our ventures and Fellow founders.  

We seek to partner with service providers whose vision, experience, expertise and approach are aligned with our mandate, meet our specific needs, and who demonstrate the following: 

·         Alignment with E Squared’s mission and purpose

·         Strong experience in supporting start-up ventures in the Service provider’s particular area of expertise:

·         An understanding of start-up-specific conditions and constraints

·         Flexible approaches to project engagement structures and the ability to allocate resources to multiple E Squared businesses at varying stages as needed 

·         Deep subject matter expertise in their respective field(s), possessing an evidenced track record of developing and accelerating start-up ventures

·         Capacity to organise, support, manage and accurately report on business growth

·         Understanding of and ability to work with different technical platforms and systems

·         A strong team with cross-sectoral exposure and experience 

·         Passion for driving impact through supporting the development and accelerated growth of start-ups

·         Ideally strong BEE credentials

If you think you have what it takes and are interested in becoming a part of our E Squared Service Provider team, please contact us at katleho@esquared.org.za

Please note that this list is not exhaustive, so please do contact us if you have other skills or experience that you think are relevant. We look forward to hearing from you and to the possibility of working together to support our young entrepreneurial leaders of the future!

Common Support Areas

Cross-cutting “core” needs:

Financial systems, reporting, book-keeping & accounting support

HR Systems and processes

Business plan formulation / Strategy development

Marketing & sales

Operational design and processes

Infrastructure sector-specific: 

Project finance

Engineering

Tender management

Compliance & regulation / certification

Health & Safety

Manufacturing & production, Retail & trade:

Compliance & regulation / certification

Health & safety

Cost control

Inputs & procurement / sourcing

Operational process design

Professional Services Industry specific:

Business Development

Recruitment & talent development

Tech Industry-specific: 

Digital Media/demand management

Tech development

Systems architecture

Data security

Community management

Analytics

User acquisition & retention

Monetisation