Parenting app announced as winner of 1-MILLION DOLLAR investment in 'Big Pitch 2025'

The SA Future Trust (SAFT) has announced the big winner of the 'Big Pitch' startup competition at its 2025 Summit in Johannesburg.

Parent Sense, a parenting app, has been awarded the $1 million (over R17 million) to be invested into the business.

The app offers personalised parenting support 'when and where you need it'.

The SATF was established in 2020 with a R1 billion donation from the Oppenheimer Generations Foundation, to support small businesses through the COVID-19 lockdown and provide longer-term support for the SMME sector.

The Big Pitch announcement served as the grand finale of its two-day summit, which featured a host of top entrepreneurs and industry leaders as speakers.

After months of regional qualifiers, over 500 applicants were whittled down to 10 finalists who took to the summit stage to pitch their disruptive ventures. The top three then advanced to the final.

As event host and 702 presenter Ray White explains, the winner will now go through an extensive final vetting process.

"The Oppenheimer family and the SAFT will work with her on due diligence and so on to make sure that the investment in her business works in the right direction."

Parent Sense founder, Meg Faure, told White that she felt quite overwhelmed by her win - 'I'm just thinking, how the heck did I get here against those other nine incredible companies!'.

Faure says it's important to know that the prize is an investment, and that her business will go through a very rigorous due diligence process.

"And, knowing the Oppenheimers, they will look at our business carefully. I'm not worried because we are highly defendable and we've got the right mission."

Looking at the long term, the entrepreneur says that for her it's all about rolling out parenting support across every demographic in South Africa.

To hear more detail, scroll back up to the audio player (skip to 26:32)