Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing subsidiary of e-commerce and cloud tech firm Amazon, plans to provide R365m ($24.7m) for black-owned businesses in South Africa, VentureBurn has reported.
The capital will be supplied through the government’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) scheme according to SAnews, and AWS will also admit startups to an 18-to-24 month incubator scheme, providing coaching in areas such as cloud computing, internet-of-things and machine learning.
The move was formalised through an agreement with South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry covering equity equivalent (EE) investment.
AWS is preparing to launch three cloud computing data centres in South Africa’s Western Cape province in early 2020. South Africa-based businesses are required to sell equity to black South Africans but EE allows multinationals to instead contribute to the economy through investment.