The first ever Traction Bus competition hosted by Startup Edge ended with Kitchen Manager being crowned the overall winners of the Gauteng leg of the competition. Traction Bus is a mobile pitching competition for African startup, the purpose of the competition is to connect, expose and celebrate the startup ecosystem participants while giving entrepreneurs an access to resources.

For the 2015 Traction Bus Gauteng edition, 4 hubs were visited to expose the entrepreneurs to the hubs’ offerings and resources. From almost 200 interested applicants, 19 finalists were chosen and allocated to the different hubs depending on the industry and stage of development of the startup. At the end of the elimination, 9 startups pitched for the prizes during THUDfest to a room full of entrepreneurs and representatives from some of Gauteng’s startup ecosystem participants.

The judging panel at the finals consisted of Alon Lits from UBER, Annie Porter from Edge Growth, Tendai Mashingaidze from Ubuntu Equity, Sam Manclark from JoziHub, Tshepo Molope from Lean Startup Machine Johannesburg and TrevorWolfe from Springleap. The pitching startups were judged on their business model, customer validation, and execution. Against all these criteria, the judges unanimously agreed on Kitchen Manager being the winner. Kitchen Manager is a solution that operates in the hospitality management software industry. Its main function is that it automates and streamlines the ordering and invoicing process between restaurants and suppliers by eliminating human error on the part of the supplier.

Kamogelo Sesing, from Kitchen Manager said that “Winning the 2015 StartUp Edge Traction Bus challenge opened up some doors for us in the way of resources, access to markets and some invaluable exposure. The experience also went a long way towards refining how we pitch our software”

The top 3 startups get access to office space, mentorship, vouchers, technical support, and assistance with funding and business support. The Coloured Cube and CubeBucks took second and third place respectively. The rest of the applicants were given opportunities to meet with mentors to refining their products/services.

With Traction Bus Gauteng finished, Startup Edge is currently preparing for Traction Bus Western Cape that will take place in March 2016 in Stellenbosch and Cape Town.