Aurik Investment Holdings boasts job creation under tough economic climate

Price Waterhouse Cooper recently revealed that one of the biggest challenges for emerging companies in South Africa is having access to market. It seems, however, that a local firm is determined to help them overcome this hurdle.

Gauteng, South Africa-based Aurik Investment Holdings supports some 27 startups and early-stage businesses, which have collectively created 63 jobs since 2013. Within the last year, these companies furthermore reported an increase in average annual turn-over by 52%.

Aurik Investment Holdings comprises of Aurik Enterprise & Supplier Development and Aurik Business Accelerator, which work with entrepreneurs and corporate companies to build successful entrepreneurial businesses and transform supply chains.

The firm has worked with over 1 000 entrepreneurs and 68 corporates across JSE-listed and multinational companies.

As noted in a press release sent to Ventureburn, the jobs were created in a variety of industry sectors including construction, engineering, business services, technology, textiles by entrepreneurs partaking in the Entrepreneur Internship Programme (EIP) — a capacity building initiative supported by Anglo American’s enterprise development arm Zimele.

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The CEO of Aurik, Pavlo Phitidis, adds that despite the 35% drop in South Africa’s Total Early Stage Entrepreneurial Rating last year, business owners on the EIP managed to grow their turnover growth.

Phitidis believes that South Africa can overcome its tough economic climate one entrepreneur at a time:

The small and medium business sector is the primary environment in South Africa right now where job creation can take place at scale. Big business is under pressure to cut jobs, the public sector system is already bloated and with our growth rate down to 1.4%, retrenchments across the board are on the cards.

The EIP provides specialist support and skills to entrepreneurs while focusing on industry exposure, mentoring and networking.