Cape Town is ranked as the best city in South Africa for entrepreneurial start ups, whilst standing out in the 60th position along with global counterparts and competitors. Fortunately for Cape Town and West Cape residents, Eskom controls only 25% of the electrical power produced by the national power grid in the Mpumalanga coalfields. Additionally, the city draws about 5% of its power supply from the Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant in the West Coast outside the city center. As it is, Cape Town runs its own power distribution network, supplying the remaining uninterrupted 75% of electricity to the city’s businesses and residents.

Since Eskom can control only 25% of the power produced by the Mpumalanga power station, load shedding events remain at Stage 1 category. This means Cape Town’s participation in the load distribution activities involve minimal amounts for the least period of time, usually 2 to 3 hours during load shedding schedules involving Cape Town.

Factors that Make Cape Town an Ideal Place for South African Startups

The existence of different financial institutions and investment firms inspired talented fintech startups to develop software and applications that enabled ordinary people in different countries to grow their savings through micro investments and with the help of robo advisors.
At the same time, financial institutions also needed help in facing the emerging challenges of issues raised against secret accounts and shell companies. Cape Town after all, is well known for being a tax haven with tax laws that pose detriments to the tax collection efforts of other countries.

Since then and with the technology provided by the startup fintechs, Cape Town has been observed to be growing by leaps and bounds. Based on a pre-pandemic survey conducted in 2018 by the Ventureburn Tech Start-up Survey, about 36% of start-ups in Cape Town earned substantial profits.

Another important factor that has been enabling tech startups to make the city the digital capital of South Africa are the collaborations between the state government and corporate organizations. Moreover, the consumers as community members of the city are quite supportive of the new products and services offered by Cape Town’s startup companies operating across a broad range of business sectors. Currently, about 97 startup companies are already doing well in Cape Town, providing tech solutions to about 79 service providers and industrial businesses in Cape Town.
At present, the city’s government officials and business leaders are looking to have 100% control over the city’s electric supply. The move to do so is in line with their plan to make Cape Town the “Tech Capital of South Africa.” As a matter of fact, the city is already known as Silicon Cape, owing to the presence of major IT companies like Oracle, IBM. Microsoft, Google, Bloomberg and Amazon.

Read More »