The Craft and Design Institute (CDI) has secured R9.5m of COVID-19 relief funding for businesses it supports as part of its CDI Growth Fund. The CDI Growth Fund is a grant fund specifically for growing South African small businesses who need a cash injection. The Growth Fund is managed by CDI Capital, which was incorporated [...]
Cape Town based technology start-up Vula Mobile has been on the digital frontline in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. A recipient of CDI’s Design Innovation Seed Fund (DISF) grant funding, Vula’s interventions have been numerous, including a National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) helpline for healthcare workers; a public facing hotline with 400 Volunteers; and creating a [...]
Applications are now open for the Design Innovation Seed Fund (DISF) – Western Cape based designers, inventors, entrepreneurs and product developers with pre-revenue innovations can apply for grant funding of up to R800 000. The DISF is a project of the Craft and Design Institute (CDI) with investment funds provided by the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA). [...]
Above: Namekhotha Trading (Pty) Ltd in Kuruman has created 30 jobs to date The CDI Growth Fund received a further 318 applications during its mid-2019 call window and the Fund is due to complete contracts with the final set of small businesses who will benefit from the CDI’s current funding allocation to scale up and [...]
The CDI’s Design Innovation Seed Fund (DISF) is currently in its third round of funding and is supporting five local innovations – the grant funding has enabled these businesses to reach important development milestones and has helped them to unlock further investment from the private sector. The DISF funds designers, inventors, entrepreneurs and product developers [...]
Above: Pesto Princess is one of the current recipients of the CDI Growth Fund (http://pesto.co.za/) A new application round has opened for the R12.8million CDI Growth Fund to boost SME growth and job creation. The CDI Growth Fund is a grant fund specifically for growing South African small businesses who need a cash injection to [...]
Kapula in Bredasdorp is one of the current Growth Fund recipients. In the past three months, we have created 120 new jobs alone as part of the Growth Fund, and we have reached 357 jobs in total so far from 37 contracted SMEs since launching the Fund in mid-2018. Through our subsidiary CDI Capital, which [...]
A total of R2.8m was disbursed in Round 2 of the Design Innovation Seed Fund (2016-2018) which is reaching its conclusion with the businesses contracted, with final close out reports being completed for the funding round. The Design Innovation Seed Fund (DISF) funds designers, inventors, entrepreneurs and product developers with pre-revenue innovative technologies and tech-enabled ideas [...]
After receiving over 60 applications through a public call at the end of 2017, the CDI – through its subsidiary CDI Capital – completed its shortlisting for round three of the Design Innovation Seed Fund (DISF). It has recently begun to disburse grants to the innovations that were approved by the DISF Investment Committee. The [...]
About 18 months ago, seven Western Cape entrepreneurs received grants of up to half a million Rands each from the second round of the Design Innovation Seed Fund (DISF) – we caught up with them to find out how things are progressing with their cutting-edge innovations. The DISF is a project of the Craft and [...]
