Facilitating High Growth Enterprises through Seed Stage investing in South Africa

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2018 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: A, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits Business School), course: Master of Management in Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation, language: English, abstract: This research finds its theoretical roots in the theory of the firm growth and is focused on high growth entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial Orientation and Venture Capital funding also become central to the research particularly with regards to the identification of High Growth Enterprises and understanding their employment creation in the South African context.

The motivation of the research was sparked by emerging research in High Growth Enterprises specifically with regards to how they are able to provide a solution to unemployment. The research aims to understand High Growth Enterprises in terms of identification and employment growth and to determine if bridging the Seed Stage gap in South Africa will facilitate the growth of High Growth Enterprises. The research employed a quantitative cross-sectional design with the founders of Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises as the unit of analysis.

The main findings of the research are that High Growth Enterprises (HGEs) in South Africa create a significant amount of jobs than those that are not (non-HGEs). Entrepreneurial Orientation significantly determines whether enterprises will become HGEs or not and significantly drives the employment growth of HGEs. Most HGEs in South Africa have funded themselves and use equity instruments at Seed Stage showing that there is a need to bridge the equity Seed Capital gap in South Africa. Venture Capitalists through their Selection Criteria are able to add more credibility to HGEs resulting in increased access to resources and employment creation. The Selection Criteria of Venture Capitalists alone cannot predict which enterprises will be HGEs Value-adding Activities of Venture Capital firms have not benefited many firms in South Africa due to the niche and nascent nature of the Venture Capital eco-system.

The implications of these findings are that the Entrepreneurial Orientation must be used to identify High Growth Enterprises and the equity Seed Stage gap in South Africa must be bridged.