Investment firm Brimstone Investment Corporation has allocated some R20-million to its entrepreneurial development fund, which seeks to assist new entrepreneurs in getting their businesses off the ground.

“It is our job, as a black economically empowered (BEE) company, to help these entrepreneurs get their business off the ground,” Brimstone executive deputy chairperson Fred Robertson said at the company’s presentation to members of the Investment Analysts Society.

He emphasised that the entrepreneurial development fund was not a BEE entrepreneurial fund, but a fund for entrepreneurs in general. “The fund has no sexual bias and no racial bias. It is for all entrepreneurs,” he said.

Robertson went on to explain that, although one of the entrepreneurial ventures failed, another, a precious metals smelter for jewellers, was in the process of being exported to India.

Developed by two engineers, the machine allows jewellers to melt down platinum, gold and silver in less than one hour, a process that previously took up to one week to complete.

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