The French Embassy in South Africa and the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) have announced the five winners of the Young Enterprise Initiative South Africa (YEi South Africa) for 2017.
The five companies will join 25 other companies from the US, Taiwan, South Korea and Italy, in November.
Romain Petit, the innovation manager at the French Embassy in South Africa said during their visit, they will spend two and a half days in Paris attending training and business to business (B2B) meetings. Thereafter, they will be assigned a partner incubator which will assist them in finding the right partners for research and development.
“The acceleration programme aims to help startups get to know the French ecosystem and identify tech partners. It is not so much about market development, but rather for startups that need testing (research and development) and industrial partners,” said Petit.
Here are the five finalists:
Altis Biologics (Biomedical, Pretoria): Specialists in research and development of biomaterials used in skeletal regeneration.
CapeRay Medical (Biomedical, Cape Town): The Cape Town-based company developing breast imaging technology used to detect breast cancer
Coco’s Solutions (Industry, Cape Town): A Cape Town-based developer of an anti-icing and anti-pollution nano-coating material that can be used in the energy industry.
Kebalepile Technology Solutions (Biomedical, Pretoria): The company has developed a hand-held asthma predictive kit that alerts users of possible asthma attacks.
Mellowcabs (Mobility, Johannesburg/Stellenbosc): This startup manufactures electric micro cabs that are used for on-demand public transport, cargo delivery and advertising in urban areas.
