Nedbank Business Banking today presented the Bandwidth Barn, an information and communications technology business incubator in the Western Cape, with a cheque for R500 000 at a function at Nedbank’s offices at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront. 

 The funds have been provided as a grant to the Bandwidth Barn as part of Nedbank Business Banking’s Enterprise Development assistance, and will be used to grow ICT companies in the Western Cape.

The Bandwidth Barn is a Cape Town based company that incubates businesses in the ICT sector. The company encourages innovation and provides ongoing training and support needed to help businesses overcome the entry barriers to employment, start-up, survival and growing their businesses. The programme encompasses increasing ICT sector competitiveness through training and skills; supporting ICT Sector growth by stimulating and boosting entrepreneurship; and transformation of the ICT sector through SMME & BBBEE enterprise support.

Nirmala Reddy, Nedbank Business Banking Senior Manager Enterprise Development says, “We are extremely proud to contribute to this important initiative.  Their success record surpasses international benchmarks in terms of success ratios from a sustainability point of view, and their contribution to the ICT sector is impacting positively on Cape Town’s vision to become the ‘Silicone Valley’ of the Southern Hemisphere.

Our involvement illustrates once again Business Banking's position as the bank for the entrepreneur and our commitment to partnering with our clients to grow their business,” adds Reddy.

The Bandwidth Barn has a two-pronged approach to supporting companies: The first prong is to lower the physical barriers to starting up a new business and mitigate the risks by ensuring companies are not bound to long term leases. This is done by providing the infrastructure required for a new business to operate successfully and businesses can benefit from short term leases (one year), bandwidth aggregation and reduced office set-up costs at Bandwidth Barn. The second is a carefully considered and proven business development programme to equip the budding entrepreneur with basic skills to ensure sustainability.

 A recent impact analysis on the successes of the Bandwidth Barn’s programmes since 2006 has revealed that of the 40 companies that have participated in the programme, 33 are still in business. This equates to a survival rate of 82.5%.

"Nedbank Business Banking is absolutely delighted to become involved with the Bandwidth Barn" says Regional Business Head, André Möller.  "Our involvement strongly emphasises the bank’s commitment to supporting the formation of new businesses in line with the stated objectives for national economic growth and job creation.  We look forward to implementing an integrated strategy to promote the creation of sustainable new businesses – with added emphasis on black economic empowerment – in partnership with the Bandwidth Barn.”

Chris Vermeulen, General Manager at Bandwidth Barn says, “We are thrilled to have Nedbank on board as a partner to our enterprise development programme and are looking forward to having the bank's expertise available to our entrepreneurs.”

Nedbank is committed to the support and development of existing and emerging entrepreneurs. Nedbank Business Banking’s enterprise development proposition provides a flexible lending approach, business support and technical assistance programmes specifically designed to accommodate the needs of the entrepreneur and the business. Important components of this support encompass business mentorship and customised training solutions through leading accredited training institutes and service providers.