South African Team Ngwako Sekhula and Mokgalakgathe Tladi have won first place at EPIC with their Social Venture Startup, VegeThentic Farms, securing a $1000 cash prize as well as mentorship from the Entrepreneurs Futures Network and adoption from the Social Ventures Foundation.
The Social Ventures Foundation will take on VegeThentic Farms in assisting in the development, funding, and scaling of the Social Venture in South Africa and in surrounding areas.
Vegethentic Farms was established in October 2018 and initially focused on building a prototype (with 18 crop capacity) which they ran for 4 months(1 crop cycle) before building a second bigger prototype with crop capacity of 360 crops which has been used from May 2019 to present, and has been running successfully ever since. Veganthentic eliminates the need for heavy machinery by using a soilless farming method of hydroponics.
Watch their Final EPIC presentation here: