Low Technology Incubation Model

Low Tech Incubation Model

Stage 1: Admission Criteria

Chemin uses a number of basic admission criteria to determine the eligibility of a project for admission to a more elaborate pre-incubation evaluation:

That the Chemistry involved is only to manufacture chemical detergents, hair care, cosmetics, perfumes and coatings,
That the SME must have the potential to grow to at least R1 million turnover a year,
The business must be potentially profitable,
At least one entrepreneur/champion involved,
The business must be a SME as defined by the Department of Trade and Industry, a group of partners or a single entrepreneur.

Stage 2: Pre-Incubation

A Pre-incubation Agreement will be signed prior to proceeding with the pre-incubation process. Having passed the admission criteria the applicant qualifies for consideration as a client for pre-incubation. The pre-incubation process will not exceed 6 months and will mainly involve training of the SME on the following:

Manufacturing Detergents,
Quality,
Environmental Health and Safety,
Hazardous Material Handling and Storage,
Bookkeeping, and
General Business Management Skills.

Chemin is considering charging a fee for this stage to recover the costs for training. The duration of this stage will be a period not exceeding 6 months. Whist in the stage, the client will be required to commence trading and meet a revenue threshold of at least R1 000 gross revenue per month before proceeding to the Incubation stage. To meet the threshold, SMEs will further be assisted with the following services at cost:

Raw Material,
Shared manufacturing services, and
Packaging material and marketing material.

Stage 3: Incubation

On completion of the Pre-Incubation Stage, the incubatee will be required to sign a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA). The client is expected to be in the incubation period for not more than three years. The following services will be provided to incubatees:

Business support and mentorship utilizing GrowthWheel mentorship tool,
Allowed to utilize shared manufacturing facilities and manufacturing mentorship at cost,
Raw material support at cost,
Assisted with Product Testing and compliance with quality standards and NRCS through Seda. In future all product test will be at Chemin laboratories but paid for through Seda grant,
Business linkages and linkages with financial institutions for additional funding depending on client needs,
Marketing assistance through funding by external institutions such as GEP, ECDC, Youth Fund, etc.,
Mentorship and assistance to comply with SARS, labour regulations,
Assistance to apply for Technology Transfer Fund through Seda,
Export assistance through Seda where applicable, and
Assistance to apply for seed funding if appropriate.

Chemin will in future provide training through the skills programme for chemical operations once it is accredited by CHIETA.

Stage 4: Graduation

The client is expected to graduate from the incubator at least 3 years after signing the Pre-Incubation Agreement and becomes eligible for exit from the incubator (both on-site and virtual) when one or more of the following criteria are met: