The businesses below were founded and are run by black women, and all of them are still trading, which is the first thing worth saying about any list like this. Each one is also instructive in a different way: one moved from online to physical retail, one built a brand around a supply chain nobody wanted, one turned a dietary shift into a product category.
What follows is what each does and the decision that made the difference.
Beauty on TApp
Beauty on TApp is a wholly woman-owned beauty retailer selling skincare, haircare and make-up. Mathebe Molise self-funded the business in 2015 and built it online first.
The instructive part is the direction of travel. Most retail stories go the other way, from a shop to a website. Beauty on TApp proved demand online, learned what its customers actually bought, and only then opened a physical store at the Mall of Africa with in-store aestheticians. Committing to a lease is the single biggest fixed cost a retailer takes on, and doing it with real sales data behind you is a materially different risk from doing it on a hunch.
Worth borrowing: let the cheap channel prove the demand before you take on the expensive one.
TheUrbanative
Mpho Vackier founded TheUrbanative, a contemporary African furniture and product design studio in Johannesburg. She left a career as an engineer in mining to study design, and the first range launched in late 2016 drawing on Ndebele graphic traditions.
Everything is designed and manufactured locally, and the client list includes Nando’s, Nike and Investec. That corporate work matters more than it appears. For a small manufacturer, a handful of business clients placing repeat orders smooths the cash flow that retail alone would leave lumpy.
Worth borrowing: a distinctive design position is defensible in a way that price is not. Nobody can undercut you out of being the only one who makes what you make.
YoCoco
YoCoco is an artisanal dairy-free ice cream business founded in 2016 by Sinenhlanhla Ndlela, using locally sourced ingredients. The range is vegan-friendly, in flavours including chocolate, granadilla, salted caramel and mixed berries, and it is stocked by eateries in Johannesburg and Durban as well as sold online for delivery elsewhere.
The timing was the insight. Dairy-free was treated as a niche when the business started, and a large share of the population is lactose intolerant, which made the supposed niche considerably larger than the category assumed.
Worth borrowing: when an industry calls something a niche, check whether that reflects the customers or just the industry’s habits.
Native Nosi
Mokgadi Mabela is a third-generation farmer and the owner of Native Nosi, a black woman-owned beekeeping operation near Polokwane producing local honey, wax and related products. Launched in 2015, it sells through its own online store, distributes to independent retailers, and has a physical presence in Johannesburg.
The funding route is the part worth studying. Rather than waiting on a grant or a bank, Mabela raised money for the farm through crowdfunding, which is unusual in agriculture and got the operation moving while conventional applications would still have been in process.
Worth borrowing: the obvious funding route is not the only one, and it is frequently the slowest. More on this in our profile, Mokgadi Mabela is Not Your Typical Farmer.
What they have in common
Three things recur.
None of them competed on price. Each built something with a distinct position, whether that is design, dietary fit, provenance or service, which is the only durable answer for a small business facing larger competitors.
Each proved demand cheaply before taking on fixed costs. Online before the lease, small runs before volume manufacturing.
And each stayed close to the customer rather than delegating that relationship. In-store aestheticians, direct online sales, a founder who knows what her buyers ask for. That is an advantage large competitors find genuinely difficult to copy.
What is available if you are building something similar
Support aimed at women-owned and black-owned enterprises exists and is under-claimed, largely because owners do not know what to ask for or assume the paperwork is beyond them.
Development finance institutions run programmes with specific allocations for women-owned businesses, and the dtic’s incentive schemes weight their grant percentages by ownership, so a majority black-owned or majority women-owned enterprise qualifies for a materially larger share of qualifying costs than one that is not. Corporate enterprise and supplier development programmes are the other route, and often the better one, because they come with a customer attached rather than only money.
Two practical points. Applications fail on incomplete paperwork far more often than on weak ideas, so registration, tax status and financial records should be current before you start. And a supplier development programme that makes you a supplier to a large company is usually worth more than a grant of the same value, because it brings recurring revenue. The full set of options is in our guide to government funding for small businesses.
Proving your ownership costs nothing if you are small
A lot of owners assume B-BBEE certification means paying a verification agency. Below a certain size it does not.
An Exempted Micro Enterprise, meaning annual turnover under R10 million, proves its status with a sworn affidavit rather than a verification certificate. The template is free from the dtic website, it is signed in front of a Commissioner of Oaths, it is valid for twelve months, and no verification agency is involved. Qualifying Small Enterprises, between R10 million and R50 million in turnover, can also use an affidavit where they are at least 51% black owned.
For an EME the level follows ownership automatically: up to 50.99% black shareholding is Level 4, from 51% to 99.99% is Level 2, and 100% black-owned is Level 1. No scorecard exercise, no consultant.
One caveat worth checking before you sign anything. Some sector codes, in construction and tourism among others, set different turnover thresholds and require their own affidavit forms, so confirm which code applies to your industry.
That single document is what most enterprise development and supplier programmes ask for first, and the cost of not having it is losing opportunities you already qualified for.
Frequently asked questions
Are these businesses still operating?
Yes. Each was verified as trading when this article was updated in September 2026.
What funding is available for black women-owned businesses?
Development finance institutions and the dtic’s incentive schemes weight grant percentages by ownership, so majority black-owned and majority women-owned enterprises qualify for a larger share of qualifying costs. Corporate supplier development programmes are the other main route.
Do I need to be certified as a black women-owned business?
You will need proof, but if your turnover is under R10 million a free sworn affidavit from the dtic template is enough, valid for twelve months. No verification agency and no fee. Get it before you apply rather than during.
What is the most common reason applications fail?
Incomplete paperwork. Company registration, tax compliance status and financial records need to be current and consistent with each other.
Where can I read about more black-owned businesses?
Our piece on five black-owned businesses making waves covers others.
The pattern worth taking
None of these founders waited for permission or for funding to arrive. Each found a specific group of people being served badly, tested cheaply whether that was worth fixing, and only then spent money. That sequence is available to anyone, and it is the one thing all four have in common.
This article was updated in September 2026.
