MBS087 - Clive Butkow, Venture Capitilist & CEO Kalon Venture Partners

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So, yesterday I was giving a talk to a group of entrepreneurs from the entrepreneur’s organization. I was talking about the worlds Unicorn club – essentially a term used for a billion-dollar valued company. I was asked by one the delegates, why South Africa has not produced a Unicorn of its own yet when more Unicorns have been produced in the last 2 years than at any given point in our history. There is no short answer to this – but what is generally pointed to is the fact that South Africa’s startup ecosystem is not where it should be - despite us having the 5th largest private equity market in the world. But after consulting to numerous startups in South Africa the current status-quo is that the venture capital market in South Africa is also not where it should be – one startup founder even told me that the irony with South African VC’s is that they don’t really venture. But in my view, there is no hard and fast rule with this stuff – if you are a startup and you have some traction it is very worthwhile exploring the local VC market because there are some very experienced players who are looking to put their funds behind your business. One of the players is Kalon Venture Partners based in Johannesburg who has made investments into startups both locally and abroad. I reached out to Clive Butkow the CEO of Kalon to get his views on the VC market in South Africa and abroad. Clive also shares some little known insights and lessons into alternative funding vehicles like initial coin offerings (ICO’s).

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