Everyone is in the room. But no one can find each other.

Across South Africa and much of Africa, entrepreneurship has never lacked attention. Governments have launched schemes and support mechanisms, funders have built programmes, corporates have expanded supplier development, and ecosystem actors have multiplied.

The intention is right, and much of the investment is necessary.

Yet, for many entrepreneurs the experience remains deeply frustrating, not because nothing is there, but because nothing quite connects.

That is the contradiction at the heart of entrepreneurship support.

Everyone is operating within the same ecosystem, but too often they cannot find one another when it matters.

An entrepreneur who needs funding may first need financial records, compliance support or a credible business plan.

A funder looking for investable businesses may have no efficient way of identifying those that are genuinely ready.

A corporate committed to local procurement may lack a trusted route to capable, verified suppliers. A service provider with real expertise may have no practical path to the businesses that need that support most.

The problem is not only scarcity. It is fragmentation.

Entrepreneurs are expected to move between incubators, grant windows, lenders, compliance advisers, mentors and procurement platforms as though these sit within a coherent system.

Too often, they do not. They are asked to start again at every gate, repeat the same information, and decode which opportunities are relevant to where they actually are in their growth journey.

The ecosystem generates a great deal of motion, but not enough traction.

This is why many interventions feel busy but not transformative. Much of ecosystem support has been built around programmes with fixed entry criteria, set timelines, defined outputs and reporting cycles.

Programmes are valuable, but they often end just when the entrepreneur needs continuity most. The programme ends. The entrepreneur continues.

Growth follows a different logic. It is not a one-off event. It is a sequence.

A business may need financial literacy before funding, compliance support before market access, visibility before procurement, or mentorship before investment.

A pathway recognises that reality. It asks not only what support exists but what a business needs now, what it needs next and how one form of support can create momentum towards another.

The goal is not to replace programmes, it is to connect them so that the ecosystem becomes more useful than the sum of its parts.

That shift requires infrastructure of a different kind, the connective tissue that helps entrepreneurs, funders, corporates, mentors, service providers and ecosystem partners find one another, trust one another and act in sequence rather than isolation.

In an environment where digital platforms increasingly shape discovery, access and decision-making, the ability to verify, match and route support matters as much as the support itself.

This is the challenge we are working to address through Kumii, powered by 22 On Sloane. Built from 22 On Sloane’s work within the entrepreneurship ecosystem, Kumii is designed to make the support landscape easier to navigate by connecting businesses to funding, markets, mentorship, professional services, learning and growth-enabling tools in one place.

The ambition is not to add another disconnected platform to an already crowded ecosystem. It is to reduce the friction that keeps opportunity scattered, businesses isolated and ecosystem partners operating in silos.

For entrepreneurs, the value is clearer pathways and less time wasted chasing disconnected opportunities.

For funders, corporates and public institutions, it is better signal, better targeting and less duplication. For service providers and mentors, it is a more practical way to reach businesses at the point where support can make a difference.

Entrepreneurs do not need more noise.

They need the right support at the right moment, markets that are open rather than opaque, and systems that follow the logic of how businesses actually grow. 

The next phase of ecosystem building will not be judged by how many programmes exist, but by whether those programmes are connected into pathways that real businesses can actually use. 

Because entrepreneurs do not grow through activity alone.

They grow through pathways that make progress possible.

Noma Ngubane is a product leaad at KUMII, Powered by 22 On Sloane.

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