Top 10 green economy innovations announced for 2023 FNF GreenPitch Challenge

These early stage start-up and pre-growth phase green businesses will now be preparing to pitch to a panel of judges at a 'shark tank-style' hybrid networking event, hosted in Cape Town on 27 July 2023. They will also be attending an investment readiness workshop, hosted by RMB Ventures in the build up to the pitch event.

The 2023 Top 10 are, in alphabetical order:

• AG Beyond Sustainability focus on helping farmers transition to sustainable and regenerative agriculture. Their product, Dijo Tsa Mobu, is an organic fertilizer made from chicken manure.

• Baom Eco Solutions is a biotech startup developing 100% home-compostable biofilms as alternatives to flexible plastics. With five effective prototype categories, their goal is to replace single-use plastics with a cost-effective, locally sourced, earth-friendly solution.

• Biological Agricultural Era (BioAge) is an agri-biotech start-up that integrates propitious solution for the agricultural sector of South Africa. The flagship product Nitro-Gro is liquid organic fertilizer and plant bio-stimulant.

• Disa Scientific with their olive brine treatment process, is a small independent R&D laboratory with a focus on agricultural and industrial wastewater treatment and beneficiation. They have developed a process for treatment of table olive brine effluent, which is a problematic waste stream that presents disposal problems.

• Greenmovement Energy is the manufacturer of Woodies, a lignocellulose-based biomass made from waste materials from the agricultural sector. Woodies are a low-carbon solid fuel used as a replacement for A- and B-graded coal in industrial coal-fired boilers.

• INO-Biodiesel is a green energy, producing clean fuel from waste cooking oil. They collect waste cooking oil and convert it into clean fuel, in partnership with women and youth in rural communities through agricultural development.

• Learn Base Energy is an energy efficiency technology that uses IoT and data science to collect energy from facilities, analyses the data and builds an energy saving model based on the data while continuously comparing it with prehistoric data overtime to showcase the return on investment (ROI) in real time.

• Optima Agrik (Pty) ltd with their Sodium Reduction Unit (SRU) removes non-nutrient salts from irrigation water so that greenhouse farmers can reuse the water that drains out of the root zone of the plant.

• Regen Organics transforms organic waste that would otherwise end up in landfills into valuable agricultural inputs. Their high-quality organic fertilizers and protein feed empower small scale farmers to transition from conventional to regenerative agriculture.

• Stroom Electric Cargo Delivery System is a women-owned cargo e-bike design, manufacturing and on-demand delivery enterprise.

Sponsors

Prizes for the winners (including a cash prize and in-kind business support), are sponsored by RMB Ventures, Google Startups for Sustainable Development, LaunchLab, SAREBI, AltGen, and The Ethical Agency.

The winner will be selected by a judging panel on the day of the event. Their decision is final.

Terms and conditions apply.