South African sanitary towel company, Mimi Women, is looking to raise R10m to build a manufacturing plant to produce affordable sanitary pads. On Wednesday, it launched the Mimi Agents for Change campaign to coincide with International Women’s Day.
The campaign is a bid to sell shares to 100 women at R100,000. Its first investment came from Wendy Luhabe, the founder of Women Private Equity Fund.
Mimi Women CEO, Ramona Kasavan, said in a statement: "Many of the successful women entrepreneurs we will be approaching already contribute large amounts of money through various charities to this end, but this activity is fragmented. This [campaign] will enable us to bypass the inevitable delays of waiting for development finance institutions for funding, who may spend months studying the project and would not have the same urgency that women would for this issue."
The company currently imports the material for the pads, which are then assembled by a local producer.
The campaign also launched a business initiative for women. The "MimiBizBox" consists of 600 pads that can be purchased for R799. Each pack of six pads will cost R10, which can then be resold for R15.
The packs also include marketing information and access to an online portal. The idea is for women to recruit additional sales reps and establish their own network, which will be based on commission.
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