Cortex Ventures to Participate in SA Innovation Summit 2019
Cortex Ventures, is a division of the Cortex Group, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Software and Solutions company that helps businesses thrive in the Smart Technology Era. We work across multiple business and industry domains seeking to augment and automate legacy processes, ultimately transforming them into intelligent systems, using the Cortex AI Engine. Launched in May 2019, Cortex Ventures is aiming to unlock the entrepreneurial opportunity offered by the 4th Industrial Revolution by helping AI and smart technology focused entrepreneurs gain access to funding for their AI start-up.
Dr Nick Bradshaw, CEO Cortex Ventures, is a panellist at this years’ SA Innovation Summit – the annual flagship event on the South African Innovation Calendar, and a platform for nurturing, developing and showcasing African innovation, as well as facilitating innovation thought-leadership.
Bradshaw said, “The Summit was created to support and promote innovation and facilitate collaboration within its own ecosystem, the initiative brings together corporates, thought leaders, inventors, entrepreneurs, academia and policy makers to amplify South Africa’s renowned competitive edge and to inspire sustained economic growth across the continent of Africa. This is exactly the place we need to be as investors to help assess and better understand the new start-ups emerging in our region.”
Bradshaw continued, “Just as we are seeing a greater need to think and act exponentially, so the need for us to adapt our thinking as to how we support and invest in this new class of higher risk AI propositions needs to also change as they are seeking funding for often very complex offerings. Equally, there has never been a better time to be a tech entrepreneur in the AI space, things that could only be dreamt of two or three years ago, are now possible. Access to free and cost-effective resources via open source, APIs and cloud providers such as Microsoft, AWS, Google and IBM are propelling these possibilities – but they need cash – and need it much earlier in the life-cycle of the business.
As a VC, focusing on both early and growth stage businesses, we are supplementing traditional support VCs offer with unique access to AI Developers and Data Scientists, product advisory services, and a FREE co-working space. This will allow us to remain close to and continuously guide the companies and partners we are working with, ultimately ensuring their success”.
Dr Bradshaw concluded, “ As a call-to-action, we invite AI-focused start-ups and scale-ups to take part in our ‘Click-2-Pitch Challenge’. It encompasses a very simple application process, inviting candidate companies to submit and join our investment and advice program. Applying is free of charge and will be reviewed by our investment team, which could lead to the opportunity to pitch for investment. Whether you are at pre-MVP, MVP, pre-revenue or post-revenue stage – we review all proposals and advise accordingly. Screening is currently active, and we welcome all submissions from across the African continent. That’s why I am so excited to go to the SA Innovation Summit, it’s a powerful platform to bring together thought leaders and accelerate innovation in South Africa, and into the African continent as a whole. I am looking forward to playing my part”.
