Twenty Green Ventures, One Stage: TerraFoundry Names Its First Cohort's Top Five in Cape Town
Updated: 7 days ago
The Western Cape's climate and green economy incubator closed its inaugural twelve-week programme with a Demo Day that drew investors, government and media into one room. Now it is turning to a second cohort.
CAPE TOWN, 27 August 2026. For twelve weeks the founders had done the unglamorous work. On Thursday afternoon they finally got the stage.
Inside a packed room in Cape Town, twenty climate and green economy startups walked up one after another, each with five minutes to make their case and three minutes to defend it in front of an expert jury. By the time the afternoon closed, TerraFoundry, the Western Cape Climate and Green Economy Technology Incubation and Acceleration Programme, had named the five ventures that will carry its first cohort forward.
The five, in order of placement, are Natural Homes, NuCarbon, Reidar, Aldam Technologies and Pula, in partnership with Greenway Africa. All five now move into an intensive eight-week Acceleration Track, and they have earned a place under the TerraFoundry and DEDAT banner at the AfricArena Grand Summit in late November, where they will pitch to a global audience of investors and corporates.
A programme built for the province
TerraFoundry is delivered by FSAT Labs, the French South African Tech Labs, and funded by the Western Cape Government through its Department of Economic Development and Tourism, known as DEDAT. The programme exists to help early-stage climate-tech and green economy founders build real products, reach investment readiness and connect to markets, and it is designed as a dual-track journey. Twenty ventures enter a twelve-week incubation built around bootcamps, weekly workshops, digital masterclasses and one-on-one mentoring. The five strongest go deeper in an eight-week acceleration track that focuses on market access, traction and the investor's point of view.
The bet behind it is a simple one. DEDAT invests as anchor funder to seed a pipeline of investment-ready climate ventures, turning the province's green economy ambitions into companies, products and permanent jobs, and positioning the Western Cape as a hub for climate innovation on the continent. The work sits inside the province's Growth for Jobs strategy and its Green Economy framework, and it lines up with the National Development Plan and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on decent work, innovation and climate action.
The room, and the reception
Demo Day drew a crowd well beyond the founders themselves. More than 120 guests registered, and the room filled with the kind of mix the programme was built to attract. Investors including Katapult Ocean, Savant Venture Fund, Vuyisa Capital, Bee Partners and Pitch Perfect sat alongside representatives from DEDAT and Wesgro, ecosystem partners, programme mentors and alumni, and a visible press contingent from Cape Town TV, the SA Business Journal, IMA Media Africa and Social TV. The afternoon ran from an opening address on the province's green economy through two pitch sessions, an expert panel on the state of green tech in the Western Cape, a closing keynote and, finally, the announcement everyone had waited for, before spilling into a networking reception.
Opening the afternoon on behalf of the funder, Ilse van Schalkwyk, Deputy Director-General at the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism, set the province's climate ambitions in economic terms. "The green agenda is not a side agenda, it's part of our economic strategy," she told the room, pointing to the province's Growth for Jobs goal of a R1-trillion economy by 2035 and the four pressures standing in its way: high energy costs, water stress, climate shocks and regulatory uncertainty. She described visiting an abalone farm in Hermanus where a 24-hour operation had built its own solar infrastructure rather than risk losing a two-year product cycle to load shedding, the kind of problem, she said, that founders in the room are already solving. "The journey to scale is a system challenge. Founders must prove demand, connect, navigate systems, de-risk demonstrations and become investment ready," she said. "We can't be everything to everybody. That's why the partnership with FSAT Labs and TerraFoundry is key, they are doing the hard slog. We need your innovation, your thoughts and your products to match some of our problems."
The verdict from the floor was warm. Guests who rated the event gave it an average of 4.7 out of 5. "Loved the vibe. Hot green talent in Africa," wrote one founder in the room. Another guest, there to observe and network, put it this way: "It was a worthwhile experience. The judges ruled with all fairness, and I was happy with and for the winners."
Five ventures to watch
The winners read like a snapshot of where the green economy is heading. Natural Homes is building a sustainable construction system that turns invasive biomass and recycled material into lightweight, insulated concrete for modular, off-grid buildings. NuCarbon runs a carbon-negative platform that converts food, municipal and agricultural waste into clean fuels, green chemicals and regenerative farming inputs. Reidar is digitising agricultural commodity trading and logistics through a marketplace that connects buyers, sellers, traders and transporters on one system. Aldam Technologies and Pula, working with Greenway Africa, round out a top five that spans clean energy, circular economy and climate-smart industry.
What the leaders are saying
"This cohort showed what happens when you give serious founders real support and then hold them to a real standard," said Thomas Hart, Centre Manager at FSAT Labs. "These are not ideas on slides anymore. They are companies with products, customers and a plan, and the province is better for having backed them."
A word from our partner
"DEDAT is proud to support the FSATLabs TerraFoundry Programme and the inspiring innovators participating in Cohort 1. Programmes such as this strengthen the Western Cape's climate-tech ecosystem by providing entrepreneurs with the support, networks, and market access they need to scale impactful solutions. Climate and green economy innovation is essential to building a more resilient, competitive, and inclusive economy, creating jobs while helping the province respond to environmental challenges. We congratulate the cohort on its progress and look forward to seeing these ventures contribute to the Western Cape's sustainable growth journey." Said Tim Parle, chief Director for Tech and Innovation.
What comes next, and a second cohort
For the top five, the work does not slow down. The eight-week Acceleration Track sharpens market access, traction and data-room readiness before the founders take the main stage at the AfricArena Grand Summit, held from 27 November to 4 December 2026, where the strongest ventures pitch under the TerraFoundry and DEDAT banner to investors and corporates from across the continent and beyond.
The programme is not standing still either. TerraFoundry is now recruiting its second cohort of Western Cape climate and green economy founders, opening the same twelve-week journey to another twenty ventures and widening the funnel of green companies the province is helping to build. Founders in renewable energy and storage, water, sustainable agriculture, circular economy and green mobility are encouraged to apply, with a particular push to reach more women-led ventures. Details on how to apply are available through FSAT Labs and the TerraFoundry programme channels.
If the first Demo Day was a test of whether the Western Cape can grow bankable climate companies from the ground up, twenty founders and their top five just made the case in person.
Explore more pictures from the Demo Day here:
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