In short: Three of South Africa’s most prominent investors, Polo Leteka Radebe, Vusi Thembekwayo and Gil Oved, used a public panel to make an uncomfortable point: big corporates in South Africa hold back cash rather than invest in innovation, and that caution is one of the reasons economic participation remains so unequal.
Why do South African corporates avoid investing in innovative projects?
Vusi Thembekwayo’s diagnosis is direct: “One of the things I find fascinating about big corporates in SA is that they do not invest in innovative projects, because they think these will fail.” His counter-argument treats failure as the cost of entry, not a reason to sit out: “Yes, you will fail and fail, but you cannot win the Lotto if you do not buy a ticket. Much of the innovation for big corporates in SA is imported and we are not creating our own spaces of innovation.”
Is government doing enough to encourage entrepreneurship?
Polo Leteka Radebe, CEO of Identity Partners and the only woman among South Africa’s Dragons’ Den investors, drew a distinction between government rhetoric and corporate action: government is “making the right speak” about entrepreneurship, in her view, but corporates are still “sitting on cash” instead of playing their part in funding it.
Why does failure matter so much to building real entrepreneurial skill?
Gil Oved, a fellow Dragons’ Den investor, argued that failure is a necessary teacher that no amount of secondhand advice can replace: “You cannot get wisdom from listening to a few TED Talks. Unless you fail at least once, you will not understand the pain and hardship of picking yourself up again and to learn about tenacity.” His point cuts against a common instinct among funders and mentors to shield promising founders from failure rather than let them absorb its lessons directly.
What did Thembekwayo mean by “two stories” of South Africa?
He framed economic participation as fundamentally unequal along lines that go beyond simple access to capital: “The reality of a young black person growing up in poor circumstances is different to that of a young person growing up in an affluent suburb like Bryanston. It means the majority of SA’s people, from a race perspective, are still unable to participate in the economy.” His addition, that the conversation needs to include “black socialisation” around entrepreneurship and not just formal participation statistics, points to a deeper cultural and exposure gap that funding alone doesn’t close.
Why does Thembekwayo dislike the term “small business”?
His objection is about mindset, not scale: “We can start small but not think small.” He argues that entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds are often taught, implicitly, to see business as short-term consumption rather than long-term growth, and that shifting that mindset toward growth entrepreneurship, doing the small things now specifically to enable bigger things later, is more important than the initial size of the venture.
What’s the actual funding challenge Thembekwayo describes?
He’s candid that funding early-stage entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds carries real failure risk, and that pretending otherwise helps no one: “Give people money to start their own things, and if they fail, let’s be honest about the fact that they failed and keep doing it.” His argument is for sustained, repeated investment despite expected failures, rather than treating one failed venture as proof the whole approach doesn’t work.
Frequently asked questions
Why are South African corporates reluctant to fund innovative startups?
According to Thembekwayo, a risk-averse assumption that innovative projects are more likely to fail, leading many corporates to import innovation rather than fund homegrown ventures.
Is failure actually valuable for entrepreneurs, or something to avoid?
Gil Oved argues genuine failure teaches resilience and tenacity in a way secondhand advice or talks cannot replicate, and should be treated as part of the process rather than something to be shielded from.
What does “growth entrepreneurship” mean as opposed to “small business”?
A mindset shift toward building a business intended to scale significantly, doing small things now specifically to enable larger outcomes later, rather than treating the venture as inherently limited in ambition.
Originally published in October 2018. Updated September 2026.
