Old Mutual has announced the Top 25 of its Value Creation Challenge (VCC) for 2021. The challenge is a partnership between Eight2Five Initiative (Old Mutual’s Hub), and The British Council that was created to support small businesses and entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe. Of all the entrants into the competition, the following have made it into the Top 25 and will move on to the next phase of the Challenge:
- Inzi Foundation (Discoverem)
- Raw Dried Fruit
- Simuka Comedy
- KVD Livestock consultancy
- Nhanga Trust
- Mantis Coffee
- Thymeless Gourmet
- Need Energy
- Hotbox
- Fuel Flip Technologies
- Sus-energetica
- Carnika
- The Noble Savage
- Agridigital
- Stock Street
- The Comic Pastor Entertainment
- Creative Pot Africa
- College Central
- Mukukuzvi Media
- Agri genius
- Learning Factory
- Eyellow Digital Network
- Passion poultry
- i-Market Zimbabwe
- Maudlex Enterprise
The big names in there are the popular Comic Pastor and The Nobel Savage. However, there are some names on that list that will be familiar with regular Techzim readers, like Hotbox, the news chatbot that replaced Duta as well as the online education platform Learning Factory. According to Old Mutual, this year’s Challenge was well received and had more female participants than 2020.
The next phase of the Old Mutual and British Council Value Creation Challenge is a Selection Bootcamp which has been designed to build their capacity and help them shape their business models and prepare for the final pitch event where the Final 5 will be selected for the Acceleration
Programme inclusive of seed funding.
