uNotho Holdings, a black woman-owned waste management and haulage company, has received R3.5m in growth debt funding from the Ignite Fund, which is managed by SME investor Edge Growth. uNotho will use the money to deliver on a contract it had already won with coal producer Seriti Power.
uNotho was founded in 2018 and is based in Mpumalanga, with branches in North West and Gauteng. It provides waste management, bulk hauling, commodity transport, and machinery and plant hire to the mining, construction and industrial sectors. The funding paid for the supply and delivery of two waste trucks under the Seriti Power contract.
Founder and managing director Makhosi Khoza is a chemist with more than ten years in mining. She said the finance allowed the company to meet its commitment to Seriti, and she credited Edge Growth with transparency and professionalism during the process. She added that uNotho aims to build long-term relationships with its clients.
| The deal at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Borrower | uNotho Holdings (100% black woman-owned, founded 2018) |
| Funder | Ignite Fund, managed by Edge Growth |
| Amount | R3.5m growth debt |
| Structure | Co-funded with other lenders |
| Use of funds | Two waste trucks for the Seriti Power contract |
| Fund backers | Seriti, among other corporates |
| Fund size | About R175m under management (2025) |
The deal needed co-funding from other lenders because R3.5m is the limit of Edge Growth’s mandate. Khanye Nene, a deal maker at Edge Growth, said the decision rested on Khoza’s leadership, her knowledge of the industry and uNotho’s record of delivering on contracts. He described the co-funding arrangement as unusual.
The Ignite Fund was launched in 2023 to serve early-stage SMEs that do not qualify for conventional finance. It has several investors and offers smaller loans with quicker decisions than traditional lenders, with a focus on mining communities. In September 2025, Edge Growth said the fund had about R175m under management and had supported around 30 small businesses.
Seriti is one of the fund’s corporate backers, so the group whose subsidiary is uNotho’s client also helps fund its lender. This is a common model in enterprise and supplier development, where companies earn B-BBEE scorecard points for growing black-owned suppliers. Nyaniso Rapiya, Seriti’s inclusive procurement and ESD manager, said the group valued building sustainable local businesses. He described uNotho as the kind of enterprise it wanted to see grow in mining.
Edge Growth, founded in 2007, reported more than R2.44bn in funds under management at the end of its last financial year. Earlier in 2026 its Abadali Fund invested in Siyanqoba, another black woman-owned engineering company in Mpumalanga, whose clients include Seriti Resources, Thungela and Glencore.
Access to credit is still the main constraint for South African small businesses. According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), only about 5% of formal micro, small and medium enterprises have access to credit, even though the sector generates about 34% of GDP and 60% of jobs. The IFC has estimated the country’s SME credit gap at about $30bn (about R525bn).
Mining is a large procurement market. The industry contributed about R477.1bn to GDP in 2025. The 2018 Mining Charter requires that 80% of spending on mining services go to South African companies, including 15% to businesses owned by black women.