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Fund Offering

Building Impactful South African Businesses

We partner with start-ups, incubators, accelerators and investors to nurture entrepreneurial talent and accelerate financial and social returns across all sectors.

Together with our partners, we support enterprises that alleviate poverty in a meaningful way, generate commercial value, and address unemployment and inequality.

Partnering for Growth, We Take a Long-Term Investment View 

We understand that businesses and entrepreneurs need time to develop. Therefore, we provide: 

  • Entrepreneur-friendly, patient capital to businesses from pre-seed to mature stages (stage agnostic funding)
  • End-to-end business support through our post-investment assistance programmes
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Early-Stage Founders

Startup Founder Pitch

A low-touch programme curated specifically to provide start-up/growth capital funding to Allan Gray Fellows who have built early-stage entrepreneurial ventures alongside other full-time work.

  • Offered to eligible Allan Gray Fellow-founded ventures or compelling side hustles.
  • Successfully selected applicants are invited to pitch their ventures to a panel of independent experts.
  • Successful participants receive up to R200k and could potentially receive a further amount of up to R250k in matched funding in instances where founder/s have raised third-party funding.
Pathways Programme

Our business venture-building programme provides Allan Gray Fellows operating compelling early-stage ventures with direct funding as well as non-financial support to systematically build robust, investable businesses.

  • Offered to eligible Allan Gray Fellow-founded ventures.
  • Provides bespoke financial and non-financial support, for each stage of the business development process.
  • Open to full and part-time Fellow entrepreneurs.


Learn More
Fellowship Founder Pitch

An annual E Squared - Allan Gray Orbis Foundation (AGOF) collaborative programme that awards grants to Candidate Fellows who are developing business concepts and ventures alongside their tertiary studies.

  • For eligible Allan Gray Candidate Fellows pre-selected by the AGOF Fellowship.
  • Selected applicants are invited to pitch their ventures or business concepts and receive input from an independent assessment panel comprising experienced entrepreneurs, business leaders and start-up coaches.
  • Candidates are awarded a grant fee and expected to submit bi-annual post-award progress reports to E Squared through AGOF mentors.

For more information on any of the above programmes, read the full fund offering brochure

Are you an incubator, accelerator and investor looking to partner with us?

Get In Touch
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High-Growth Businesses

3 Capital Ventures (3CV)

3CV is an E Squared and Allan Gray Limited joint investment vehicle for investment into high-growth, asset-light businesses with significant traction and returns.

  • Eligible businesses must have high-growth, tech-enabled or tech-driven business models with significant traction, scalability and attractive returns.
  • Funding requests are subjected to screening and due diligence processes that the 3CV team will conduct to prepare an Investment Memorandum (IM) that is subject to Investment Committee (IC) approval.
  • 3CV provides a bouquet of equity funding instruments.
E Squared Ventures (E2V)

The E2V investment programme provides funding to eligible Allan Gray Fellow-run ventures that have attained demonstrable market traction and require seed/growth funding. Funded businesses also get access to bespoke value-creating post-investment support.

  • Offered to eligible Allan Gray Fellow-run ventures.
  • Funding requests are subjected to due diligence processes conducted by the E Squared Investment team and service providers to prepare an Investment Memorandum (IM) that is subject to Investment Committee (IC) approval.
  • Hands-on strategic post-investment support from E Squared's value creation team and external service providers.

 

Apply Now
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Social Enterprises

E Squared Social Enterprise (SE)

E Squared provides financial and non-financial support to early-stage social enterprises that are focused on creating entrepreneurial and income-earning opportunities for unemployed youth in South Africa.

  • Offered to Social Enterprises (may or may not be founded by Allan Gray Fellows).
  • Eligible enterprises must be social impact entities with a focus on creating youth entrepreneurial opportunities.
  • Funding requests are subjected to due diligence processes that will be conducted by the E Squared SE team to prepare an Investment Memorandum (IM) that is subject to Investment Committee (IC) approval.

Apply here: https://wkf.ms/4aBodny

 

Apply Now

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Our Goal is to help create meaningful earning opportunities and alleviate poverty.
© 2021 E Squared

Excellence in ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Newsletter

Join our mailing list and keep up with E Squared

By Submitting your email you accept our privacy policy

Newsletter

Join our mailing list and keep up with E Squared

By Submitting your email you accept our privacy policy

© 2021 eSquared

A South African Impact Investment Fund

Our Goal is to help create meaningful employment and alleviate poverty.
© 2021 eSquared

A South African Impact Investment Fund