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Startups have until Friday, April 15 to apply for the first accelerator run by the French South African Tech Labs (FSAT Labs) in Cape Town.

Disrupt Africa reported in February of last year Cape Town was selected as a new French Tech Hub, becoming the sixth city globally to join the programme after Moscow, New York, San Francisco, Tel-Aviv and Tokyo.

The next month the French Tech Hub initiative announced it would launch an incubator in Cape Town aimed at assisting local startups while also providing a soft-landing location for French businesses looking to launch in South Africa and the rest of the continent.

Applications have now opened for the first accelerator programme to be hosted at the FSAT Labs incubator in Century City, Cape Town. The programme is run through a partnership between international digital firm Methys and South Africa’s Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda).

Both organisations have invested a combined amount of ZAR10 million (US$720,000) in this new programme for entrepreneurs, which offers acceleration to Western Cape-based startups that want to develop their activity in the digital sector, with a clear focus on black entrepreneurship.

The six-month incubation programme is free for selected startups, and will see FSAT Labs provide a broad range of services and support from a dedicated team of experts.

This first phase is following by an acceleration phase for the more sustainable businesses, which will last up to 24 months. It will also see them provided with help with the fundraising process.

The key focus areas that will be addressed by the FSAT Labs, reflecting the specialisation areas of the founding members of the French Tech Cape Town ecosystem, are SMART city, SMART home, SMART commerce, SMART education, and SMART media.

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