As part of The Innovation Hub‘s Maxum Business Incubator, five entrepreneurs were chosen out of a total of 20 to pitch their innovative products to a group of venture capitalists, innovators, entrepreneurs and the public at the Absa Maxum annual showcase in Pretoria, South Africa yesterday. Johannesburg-based startup, SnappCab, was ultimately announced as the winner.
No ad to show here.
Sponsored by Absa, the winning pitch was awarded to Anton van Metzinger from Snappcab with the prize valued at R50 000.
SnappCab is a multi-platform hail-a-cab app to order, use and pay for metered cabs generally based on the user’s GPS location. The service is available on the web, Android, iOS and will be available on BlackBerry and Windows 8 very soon.
Sponsored by Absa and noted for being Africa’s first internationally accredited Science Park, the Innovation Hub offers a pre-incubation programme (renamed Maxum Innovation Factory) which is between six to nine months’ duration and the main incubation programme (Maxum Core) which lasts up to three years.
The programme focuses on encouraging growth related to innovative knowledge and technology-based enterprises in Gauteng.
The Head of Enterprise Development at Absa, Sisa Ntshona, said, “As Absa, we recognise the vital role of innovation and technology in our country’s economy and therefore promote and support the growth of small and medium enterprises in this sector through our enterprise development capability.”
Van Metzinger explains that with this prize under the belt, SnappCab will be looking to further expand and innovate its existing methods of business:
“This business sounds like it has a particular value proposition, which it does right now, but in fact the broader technical under-build allows for a range of potential business opportunities. We are very much thinking around horizontal expansion once we’ve vertically nailed down the cab aggregation business. So I think this trip will provide some real input and food for thought around potential expansion.”
IT News Africa reports that as the final Maxum Incubation Programme winner, the company will now head to New York, Silicon Valley and Miami in what’s described as being a “fact-finding mission”.
