South Africa: Wesgro proudly hosted the opening event of the BRAIN 4.0 Regional Bootcamp in Cape Town which will be observed till Mar 04, 2025. The event is organised to bring together venture capital funds, global experts, DeepTech startups and key local players, as the bootcamp explores startup ecosystem for South Africa.
While hosting the opening event, Wesgro provided an overview of the innovation landscape of the province, that included the efforts to increase VC flows. It also established the existing innovative ecosystem, along with strong talent pipeline of the region.
There, Wesgro showed its ability to access markets from the Western Cape. It showcased the world-class network of higher education institutions commercialising innovation. It also considered the importance of policy reform to unlock the growth.
Reportedly, the BRAIN 4.0 kicked off on Feb 24, 2025. The Regional Pan-African Bootcamp marked the first in-person milestone of the BRAIN African DeepTech Accelerator, which is a 5-Day immersive experience designed to equip the 10 promising startups with the tools, networks and mentorship needed to scale this.
So far, the Day-1 highlighted ‘Tom Parle’ from the Western Cape Government and ‘Russell Brueton’ from Wesgro that shared abouth the efforts deployed by the government to foster innovations.
On the very first day of the event BRAIN Partners set the tone for cross-continental collaboration. Kate Hach discussed role of DeepTech in Africa’s global innovation footprint and power of the science-preneur mindset.
Also, AI & Healthcare startups delivered bold, investor-ready 60 sec pitches, and shared their ‘why’ with raw authenticity.
The bootcamp panel on Day-2 continued with a high-impact discussion on Scaling HealthTech Innovation in Africa, which was hosted in collaboration with Octoco & Technopark Stellenbosch.
This panel gathered top experts from Sanofi, BCG Healthcare Accelerator and key South African health stakeholders to explore scaling challenges, investment opportunities and the role of partnerships & regulation in shaping the future of healthtech on the continent.
The 3rd and 4th day also saw the Business Models to HealthTech Innovation and DeepTech Pitching & Strategic Commercialization, considering the essential aspects of startup growth and innovation. The two days were full of real conversations and genuine insights. At Stellenbosch Univeristy, their focus refined the pitching skills of startup and market readiness.
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Notably, BRAIN Program is run by Open Startup and powered by AfricaGrow, Digital Africa and Sanofi’s Global Health Unit for sustainable impact, in partnership with @MIT-Africa, the MIT Executive MBA, AfricInvest Group, InstaDeep and Bpifrance.
BRAIN Regional Bootcamp is hosted by Stellenbosch University, LaunchLab, CERI: Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation and Fluorobiotech (PTY) Ltd, sponsored by Octoco, Technopark Stellenbosch, WorkShack and locally supported by Wesgro, Innovation City Cape Town.