This is a guest post by Agnes Sokol who spent a month assisting in putting together marketing plans for the 1st Savannah accelerator in Nairobi, Kenya:

Spending time with the startups of Savannah Fund proved to be a unique opportunity to think about marketing in a context quite different than my own. Coming from the tech space in San Francisco I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect while working with teams from Ghana, Uganda and Kenya but picked up quite a few insights and learned a lot along the way.

I saw that there is no one-size-fits-all solution in crafting an effective marketing plan, that each startup faces unique challenges in their home country, and that in areas of constraint, creative strategies can be used to reach an audience and effectively convey the message.

I also learned that although operating in vastly different environments, startups launching in San Francisco and their African counterparts face many of the same challenges in their initial stages. Here are some key insights on the challenges and opportunities of marketing startups in African markets.

Main Challenges

1.) Product education:
One challenge that all startups in the accelerator faced to some degree was educating the public about their services. In order to get people to use buy a tech item, or to play a mobile game or to book a travel experience through their platforms, they first had to sell them on the larger concept. Each startup tried to overcome this by making the product as easy as possible to use, visually appealing and as useful as possible to the user.

2.) Pioneering a new market:
In many parts of Africa, startups are not yet dealing with a crowded market, but have to pioneer new markets which can prove to be even more difficult. Instead of finding their niche and differentiating their product against the competition, oftentimes they are writing a new script altogether. This proves to be an interesting challenge as you now need to convince users to try the offering for the very first time. An example of this is the ecommerce company Ahonya, which is the only functioning ecommerce site in Ghana. Their challenge is not only to educate their users about the products they sell, but also to convince them to cross an ecommerce trust barrier when placing their orders.

3.) Limited Internet reach:
Although internet penetration is rapidly growing in many parts of the continent, many areas still have a fairly limited digital reach. This is an obvious challenge when it comes to digital marketing as your audience may not yet be online. I saw a direct example of this when planning email marketing strategy as launching campaigns can prove to be tricky if your users don’t regularly check email. A creative way to get around this hurtle is to find your users where they currently are and effectively move them to your site. This can be done by using some highly targeted offline marketing or using popular channels like SMS or social networking which are regularly used around the continent.

4.) Cultural Relevance:
Africa is not a country, but rather a diverse continent made up of 54 countries. Startups looking to expand their market outside of their home countries may be challenged by a lack of understanding of users outside of their own space. An interesting example of this was observed with Khola Studios, a gaming studio from Uganda. The team at Kola Studios is looking to expand a popular game, Matatu, outside of Uganda but may have to change the name to make it culturally relevant in other East African markets.

5.) Limited budgets:
Like startups anywhere else in the world, funding it limited and must be used intelligently to achieve maximum impact. With funding going in a million different directions, I saw that it can be difficult for founders to allocate a strong portion of their overall budget on marketing. It’s important to understand the importance of effective marketing in overall success and set aside a healthy portion of funding for sales and marketing. Once a budget was set, each startup was able to spread it over a variety of channels and prioritize which ones were most vital to their overall goals.

Opportunities

1.) Peer Influence:
Africa is known for a strong word-of-mouth culture. Since many potential users are not yet convinced of the services provided by the startups, using social proof is critical in convincing them of legitimacy of the service. The startups at Savannah Fund used personal testimonials, social media interactions and even customer interviews to show legitimacy of their product.

2.) Leveraging mobile to get out your message:
Africa has a staggering mobile penetration rate which can be used to market your product. Ahonya incorporated an integrated SMS campaign into their email marketing strategy to ensure that they could communicate their message with their users.

3.) Creative use of offline marketing:
As a digital marketer, I had to come to terms with the fact that a good percentage of users are not yet online and must be reached using other means. Each startup had an offline marketing component as part of their overall plan but we worked to ensure that offline marketing efforts were highly targeted and effectively planned.

4.) Authenticity:
Startups on the continent have a local perspective and a deep understanding of the market. This on the ground understanding allows them to tell a story which is genuine and authentic, as opposed to others trying to market their product in parts of Africa without true local knowledge. Being able to understand your marketing is critical in communicating your value proposition in a way that will resonate, and eventually convert users.

5.) The Right Timing:
As internet usage grows across the continent, startups have the opportunity to launch at the perfect time as their services become relevant and needed. Startups launching at a tipping point can find themselves at the right place and the right time.

Each startup at Savannah Fund is creating a much-needed service and each teams comes with energy, enthusiasm, and a clear passion for what they are creating. My time with them showed me that many of the challenges of marketing in emerging African markets can be turned into opportunities to think and execute in creative ways. Each startup is crafting their unique story and producing a product that has meaning and relevance to many on the continent.

In a recent Forbes article, I outlined the need for investors in Africa of all types to get better at messaging what areas they invest in. Its not enough to just say “we are an early stage tech investor” anymore. The technology scene is getting larger and more and more startups, regions and verticals are interested or building tech ventures. More importantly different investors have different approaches. For instance, it is easy to try lump different types of entrepreneurship (the primary customer of an investor) under one banner. I segmented out the 3 areas the way I see it:

1. 1) Survival Entrepreneurship: In Africa’s high unemployment market characterized by low skilled informal/semi formal businesses- impact investors, many with experience in microfinance or financial inclusion, target these entrepreneurs in their mission to help communities climb out of poverty and earn a sustainable income. If not the entrepreneurs directly, they target the base of the pyramid as customers for the startups for basic services like water, solar lighting etc…
2. 2) Lifestyle Business: Business of up to 5-25 employees with founders wanting to control their destiny, often the business can be a family one. This is actually a dominant form of entrepreneurship in Africa and around the world, there are very few Zuckerbergs, but there are many entrepreneurs running a small business. Everything from restaurants to increasingly mobile apps with a niche but attractive enough audience generating income from App stores. Closer to tech and Africa, it might be a freelancer at the iHub doing consulting work. These businesses would love to grow bigger, but typically not outside their own borders or scope of founder’s skills and talent.
3. 3) High Growth Venture: Typically characterized by a founder with a bold vision, highly skilled technical ability, willing to take a big risk and willing to bring on partners (inc. investors, strong cofounders) to make their mission a reality. Should they succeed they generate high returns for their investors and generate 1,000s of jobs. Paul Graham’s Startup=Growth Essay is an extreme take on this type of entrepreneur and what they should focus on at all costs. Professor Isenberg from Harvard, hits the nail on the head as well with realizing that there is a danger of focusing too much on startup creation vs focusing on their growth.

All 3 are vitally important to African economies and some entrepreneurs may even go through all 3 in 1 venture (although very unlikely- more likely Lifestyle to High Growth) or try all three as separate ventures. At Savannah Fund we are interested in the 3rd High Growth (and consequentially, high risk) type of entrepreneurship which matches up well with technology (web and mobile) sector given the ability to scale out fast and hence achieve rapid growth. It also means we use equity and very little debt initially to get the business going. We bet on the founder and aim to be their business partner, connecting them to both our local and Silicon Valley mentor and investment community who have experience and focus 100% on tech. That’s why for instance, we use a coding test as our filter in the absence of products in the accelerator to ensure that one of the founders is technically outstanding to carry the startup through the long journey and likely many pivots required in iterating the product. Strong technical ability also is a good prerequisite of being able to understand metrics and be coachable in other areas of business- you hope the other founder has these qualities inc. high risk appetite and ability to sell and hire future employees. The founders typically are very “mission driven”, this is very different to impact investors who focus on specific do-gooder goals. One litmus test of this type of entrepreneur is whether they have $1 to their name or $1M, they remained razor focused on achieving their growth goals.

A good book that does a good job further outlining the importance of different approaches to founding a company is Founder’s Dilemma that I reference many times to entrepreneurs and bring up in various slide decks. It’s critically important we apply this type of thinking to African startups since in the early days,  entrepreneurs have little local reference of what it is like to grow a VC backed venture- it is also further complicated with the rise of “social enterprises” (more on this later).

Traditionally a VC firm may outline an investment thesis (Example: take a look at Union Square Ventures) – they have to do this formally when they raise money from their limited partners. We do the same. At the same time, technology changes so fast;  what was hot last year may no longer be hot today. Entrepreneurs over time should be able to deduce from the fund’s portfolio what type of companies fit and more importantly if the investment firm fits your startup. We have been around 6 months and made 1 formal Seed/Series A investment and as of today we have launched our accelerator with 4 startups selecting down from 170 applicants. But we are still early days, hence the need for this post to better clarify our goals and help entrepreneurs reaching out to us.

In the rest of this and next post, I will start to outline our current thesis more broadly as we see what is out there and iterate on our own thinking:

• Savannah Fund is not a Charity or “Social Enterprise Fund”- 100% for profit: We have tried to make this very clear and it might not be clear enough- we are on the side of for profit private equity- so pitching us a charity or social Enterprise is not a good fit (in fact, we believe many are trying to transition into lifestyle entrepreneurship category with few paths to scale a tech venture)- that being said, I have noticed some founders  label their startups “social enterprise” as a marketing strategy to appeal to impact investors, we don’t fall for that since we are not an impact fund. We believe in doing good by doing well, but we want to grow wealth in Africa which in turn translates into social benefits. M-PESA is a commercial service owned by a corporation but is squarely in sight for impact investors interested in financial inclusion for the bottom of the pyramid, TOM’s shoes makes a lot of money selling shoes and donating a pair on the sales level (not legal structure level). The impact investment world is swarming around Africa right now and that’s a good thing, but we want to remain clear and focused on building Africa’s private equity scene, particularly early stage VC/angel networks. What this actually means is that we also are very cautious when we look at areas that have traditionally been donor funded, for instance mHealth or rural energy- in these sectors you might find many players in the ecosystem dependent on donor funding or NGOs to deliver their work, whilst there is a huge impact tech can play here, there is typically a lot of aid money in these areas that makes it hard to invest at risk of being “crowded out” or creating the wrong incentives around the product or service delivery ecosystem. We will still look at strong tech plays in these sectors, but we’ll likely do 5-10 times the homework/due diligence vs say a gaming company. If your business is targeting the Bottom of the Pyramid African “BOP”, for it to be sustainable, substantial scale is required in Africa, meanwhile the emerging middle class is growing all the time and they are more connected online than ever, so distribution to reach them and hence growh is becoming easier. As I mentioned before in reference to Founder’s Dilemma, a founder may create a social enterprise in Africa and not realize the challenges of raising seed funding in that environment with the right tech focused investors down the line when it comes to scaling out or their SMS/feature phone solution which may rely on partnering with multiple mobile operators to reach the BOP segment customer base. Or they may rely so much on grant funding to get going, they completely forget to align incentives or learn what VC investors seek when looking for growth capital because of their legal structure, internal behaviors and incentives of the founder/employees.

• Incorporation + Set up Employee Incentives: Many startups have not done the ground work of getting legally registered as a corporation or limited partnership. Savannah Fund invests in entities not your personal bank account. Again, many startups might be at the prototype or idea stage and probably are eyeing up setting up the company once they secure funding, that is understandable given the cost and time it takes in many African countries. We have lawyers in our network across the continent but being on top of this helps quite a lot. Related to this is spinning out a non profit to a for profit- don’t assume we’ll just be happy funding your spin out without proper thought about setting up the right legal structure to take external capital and finding the right team members for the startups. Related to this is Cap table and vesting/reverse vesting for startup founders. Many repeat the mistakes where cofounders have no skin in the game in the startup or if they decide to bail they walk away with a big chunk of equity. Startups everywhere, including Africa, need to be thoughtful about this- there’s plenty of tips on venture hacks- but at the same time, do what makes sense for your market. Equity as compensation may not be as valuable to employees in Africa as it is in Silicon Valley. That being said, the biggest asset an early stage startup has are its people/founders- be thoughtful in motivating and retaining them (hint: being mission driven helps a lot). In our accelerator, the first session we had for the startups was what I coined  “Term Sheet Day”, where we brought in our legal counsel to give a primer on shareholder agreements, boards, secretaries and investment terms. It becomes much harder to do this if we backed a team that has been a non profit for years and used to raising donation money and churns a lot of volunteer staff.

• Not every Africa content site is ripe for investment- especially monetized via ad networks: By far the most number of startups we have had pitch us are those who have created a website with maybe at most 1,000 visitors a month. Even ones that are at 100,000 visitors a month (particularly in 1 country). The issue with content sites is maintaining engagement, growth and most importantly relying on monetization via adnetwork with low Africa CPMs or a fragmented audience. If you saw the news recently, InMobi, one of the most active mobile ad networks in Africa pulled out. It is incredibly hard to monetize Africa sites on traditional display ads. I recently signed up to iRokoTV over the weekend and I saw 3 video ads of 2 mins each before I was exposed to the free film. Meanwhile, I saw the classic “get Gmail on the go via SMS” about 5 times on different pages. There simply doesn’t seem to be enough advertising spent online in Africa  to match those billions of impressions your site might generate. So unless you have a creative way to monetize, there is little interest from us- especially if you don’t even really capture user info and know what demographic they really are. Show us why the users on a gossip site will be worth more than a news site with diaspora readers- I gave some examples in my Valuation for the Africa Startup deck. This may change over time and it becomes even harder to surface ads as Africa is a mobile continent- but at the heart of it, advertisers need to start spending real money to reach African audiences before viable VC backable business built on an advertising business model- and even then, investor appetite, including ourselves looking at global trends (Facebook and mobile anyone?) don’t favor ad based consumer web business currently.

• How you get introduced, referred and get to know Savannah Fund matters a lot: Many startups just contact me traditionally and they will send me e-mail updates with no context. An investment in a company is like a marriage, its not a one time deal and then we walk away, some companies we could be working with for 5-10 years. So building a relationship matters, it allows us both to decide if it might be a good idea to work together. Our first deal, biNu, was 8 months in the making (before Savannah Fund was even up and running). It also takes quite a long time to get Africa tech deals done due to paperwork, synchronizing investors and time it takes to due diligence a startup (more on how to shorten this in the next post). We take a riskier bet and cast our net wide on the Accelerator and even then it took us 2 months to screen and select the startups. So get to know Erik, myself and Paul over time and this improves chances dramatically. It is no secret that I am found around the iHub getting coffee in the mornings from 8am-10am, I am typically also at my most engaged, I am a morning person, so am hungry to hear any interesting news then vs at 3pm when I just battled Nairobi traffic for various meetings and errands and have a ton of e-mail to attend to.  Generally, those in East Africa around the iHub community have a better visibility to me. If you are startup in Nigeria or South Africa , its just that much harder to build a relationship, but still possible as we showed in our first deal with the company all the way in Australia. We do travel and we are building strong links with other investors across the continent who share in our philosophy and approach to serving tech startups.

• Tech VC is a global game- we don’t just fund local teams: We turned some heads for funding a Zimbabwean living in Australia with a company with traction in Africa. We did not set up Savannah Fund to be restricted by borders, but we did set up to be in Kenya for a variety of reasons including Nairobi as a vibrant and connected community. Our first deal had co-investors from Australia, Africa to California (3 continents). What is most important is that you are building a startup with an African customer base or are selling something uniquely African to the world. And we can help in building these ventures given both of our expertise and networks. Many ventures abroad might need an investor in Africa to help and inform them here- many African ventures might need connections abroad to help them scale and source further investment abroad- we can help with both. As an example, I like to quote one of our investors Tim Draper of DFJ who has invested in Skype in Estonia and Baidu in China – they have global network of funds in different countries to take a more local approach. Another investor in our fund, 500 Startups, is literally blowing up startups globally with 400 investments so far in 20 countries. We are global to the core- we expect a lot of our startups to be like-minded.

Next post I will talk about what we look for in founders and team traits, and more into specific sectors.

Earlier today, a twitter conversation I had with someone who was interested in working with Savannah Fund resulted in one the best e-mail intro formats. It quickly helped me decide whether it was worth further. It took me less than 1 minute to establish whether to continue to connect or not.

We constantly get people who are interested in helping us out at Savannah Fund but we hold a high bar into the kind of team we want to build from consultants to entrepreneurs. Most of the time like with any hiring, its not a fit. I wanted to provide this a template to help others in future who are reaching out to us whether entrepreneurs or potential partner/mentors.

After getting permission, I am able to repost. A few guidelines why this mail was so compelling:

1. - Immediately focusing on the key question I asked “Why Kenya and not Nambia”? And anticipates my next questions (saves a lot of back and forth e-mailing)
2. - Quickly establishes experiences and background (mobile expertise and startups)
3. - Focuses on tangible projects that fit with Savannah Fund’s mission (incubation, PR, mentoring etc…)
4. - Clear timeline of when will be in Kenya and fully committed to being here.
5. - You don’t see it here, but there were about 8 or so links to showcase work or link to articles and prove that homework was done and understand the space. Resume link was 1 page in a unique format.

The most important thing about this mail is that it was clear, concise and it stood out.

I have removed any identifiable information and added xxxx as appropriate. I should also note that this is from a person with marketing/PR background which by this mail clearly demonstrates the talent. Sometimes I will get an e-mail from an engineer and they won’t use the opportunity even showcase their engineering skills via a linkedin profile or links to past projects. In the e-mail itself you can tell this is a qualified PR/marketing professional.

Thanks for sending over your address. To answer your most recent questions posed on Twitter, I had originally planned on moving to Namibia to help my cousins get their xxxx biz off the ground and create an online presence for them. However, the more and more I read about Kenya’s tech scene, the more I know this is where I really want to be.

Currently a xxxx here in Silicon Valley, I work for global agency xxxx and am a consultant to xxxx, where I play an integral role driving communication campaigns for the company’s mobile initiatives in developing countries.

Living in xxxx, I’m fanatical about the tech and start-up scene. As a consultant for xxxx, my expertise is in mobile money. The work I do further drives perception of xxxx as being best equipped to bring mobile financial services to developing markets and confidence among xxxx investors that the company’s mobile strategy will drive sustainable growth.

Why Nairobi?

I’m currently looking for a job or fellowship within the business development and marketing realm in Nairobi, and I would be honored if you would consider me for any positions you might have available at Savannah Fund. Given my background and interest in tech, the start-up scene and mobile opportunities in Africa and developing countries, Nairobi is a natural fit for me. Having read and researched the booming tech scene in Kenya (nice Savannah Fund placement BTW), I can’t think of a more exciting place to be in tech right now.

Why Me?

· I have a deep understanding of the mobile tech industry. With 5 billion mobile subscribers around the world today, mobile is the world’s first truly universal technology. The opportunities that come with this kind of inclusion fascinate me not only personally, but also professionally. Yes, I have a deep understanding of the mechanics and scalability behind my client’s mobile products and a strong knowledge-base of mobile trends—but I’m also a skilled story teller. Because, let’s be honest, the best marketing is good storytelling and the ability to help people understand and remember your company.
· I have my finger on the pulse of tech trends and the media landscape that shapes it. I work with leading tech journalists from key publications ranging from TechCrunch to the New York Times on a daily basis, and I’m confident that the media relations aspect of my current role gives me a unique advantage. For example, I can advise that Ina Fried of the Wall Street Journal’s AllThingsD is more likely to cover a start-up who has a compelling human interest angle—a knowledgeable, charismatic co-founder can go a long way. Similarly, I’d advise start-ups to be laser-focused on who they pitch, get to know writers via Twitter and Facebook, become genuinely interested in what they cover, understand what they like and reach out as appropriate.
· I have experience in counseling and mentoring entrepreneurs. I volunteer for a non-profit called xxxxx, an incubator hub in its own right that offers high school girls the opportunity to create and build a mobile app within a 12 week timeframe , with the winning app distributed on the Android Market. Alongside some of the brightest minds in Silicon Valley, including Ben Horowitz, Marissa Mayer and individuals at leading tech companies like Google, Twitter and Square, I help the girls think about where their app would fit in the marketplace and provide counsel from a marketing and sales perspective. I’ve also helped secure visibility and exposure for xxxx, including a live broadcast on CNBC , coverage in Forbes and San Jose Mercury News, among others, which has given xxxxx exposure both locally and nationally—ultimately driving the growth of program participants, mentors and volunteers—and credibility within the tech community.
· I’m driven, entrepreneurial, scrappy, motivated, knowledgeable and passionate about mobile technology—and I will give you 120%.

Mbwana, I have confirmed plans to move to Africa at the end of 2012, and I would like to be considered for any positions you might have available at Savannah Fund. I’ve included my resume for additional background and I look forward to hearing back from you!

;

I am happy to announce Savannah Fund’s first seed investment- biNu mobile- we participated in this round along with Eric Schmidt of Tomorrow Ventures and a number of other Angels investors. The story of how Savannah Fund became involved in biNu started early this year when I was in the middle of fundraising for the fund. I had established regular meetings with my Stanford business school classmate, good friend and informal advisor and mentor Tristen Langley, an experienced VC with an interest in emerging markets. Tristen had worked on the Skype deal at Draper Fisher Juverston, a deal that came out of Estonia. She had also encouraged me during my time at business school 7 years ago that one day I could be a VC in Africa and about the same time Paul Bragiel had also convinced me to seriously look at Africa to participate in tech. One such meeting with Tristen in Oakland, CA she asked me an obvious question: “How many people in Africa currently use smartphones and 3G internet?”- my answer was along the lines of “Not many now, but it is growing rapidly, android is really taking off led by Samsung, Huwaei.”

“You should take a look at this company called biNu from Australia”, replied Tristen.

Then I remembered during my routine trips to East Africa another issue- once you leave urban areas, 3G mobile signal often drops dramatically and in many parts of Africa 2G is still the norm. Mobile operators have not invested in universal high speed internet coverage especially in rural areas. With the latest Android or iPhone you might be able to send some e-mails over a 2G network and some very slow web browsing, but access to rich services such as social media were severely limited or painfully slow- an unacceptable user experience.

On my way back to San Francisco from Oakland on the BART train I researched the company and it became clear that not only does biNu work on feature phones, it is also a window into the smartphone world of rich apps over low speed networks. I quickly wrote a blog post on Afrinnovator that explains why I think biNu is significant and sent the link to Tristen- within a day, she connected me to Gour Lentell, founder of biNu and over the next few months during their fundraising trips to Silicon Valley I met the team often to learn about their company and their strategy. Erik Hersman had also met Gour on the continent in South Africa and again at Pivot East in Nairobi.

Once in a while, a platform comes along that is highly relevant to Africa. Opera is the browser of choice of many Africans. Prior to being acquired by Facebook, Snaptu was a key app many used to connect to Facebook on feature phones. I believe biNu is that next generation platform for Africans to connect to social media and rich apps in the absence of higher priced smartphones and the high speed mobile Internet networks. As is featured on the Nextweb Article, Africa is one of the fastest growing user base for biNu with over 1 million active monthly users.

This is exciting for local app developers too who want to reach more Africans or feature phone users as they can bypass the mobile operators and appstores. Every local African mobile or online content entrepreneur will likely run up against the distribution problem on how to reach their African audience online with rich apps on features phones. Take the biNu partnership with Worldreader, ebooks can be delivered to low end phones with added benefit of Google translate should a swahili reader in Tanzania want to translate an English book into native language page by page at fast speeds. I am actually a regular user of biNu on my low end Android phone, when I am not in urban areas, such as in upcountry Tanzania, I use it connect to Facebook and Twitter.

For brands, biNu provides an interactive channel to reach African consumers- like their survey App which rewards consumers with biNu credits that can be redeemed for premium biNu services like free SMS. Given the lack of data about emerging African consumers- biNu provides a channel for brands to listen and ultimately serve this increasingly lucrative segment of consumers in Africa.

We look forward to helping biNU scale even more across Africa and to connect users currently on feature or low end smartphones to rich apps and services. In addition, we also look forward to working with local African app developers who are interested in reaching this unique and growing user base.

biNu founder Gour Lentel is Zimbabwean born (apparently the Steve Jobs of Zimbabwe!) now living in Australia with the rest of his Team. Savannah Fund believes that innovations addressing Africa and indeed the world can start from anywhere and we will leverage our global networks from Silicon Valley, Australia to Kenya to find the very best innovations shaping Africa technology.

We are excited for the launch of Savannah Fund at Pivot East conference in Nairobi this week. Thought it would be good to provide some clarification on the fund.

Savannah Fund is a seed capital fund specializing in US$25,000-US$500,000 investments in early stage high growth technology (web and mobile) startups addressing the Sub-Saharan Africa market. Initially focused in East Africa, we aim to bridge the gap in early stage/angel and venture capital investment that currently exists in Africa. The Fund has 3 components and expects to achieve this objective by combining capital with mentor networks both in the region and from Silicon Valley via an

1) accelerator program in Nairobi, Kenya ($25k) and a

2) follow on fund for successful accelerator graduates ($100-200k) and

3) independent seed fund ($100-500k)

The Partners of Savannah Fund bring a complimentary mix of skill set for deal flow, on the ground due diligence and technical assistance to support startups. Erik Hersman is the founder of Ushahidi, a crisis management platform and the founder of the iHub in Nairobi, the leading workspace in Subsaharan Africa with over 5,000 members. Paul Bragiel is a serial tech entrepreneur and founder of i/o ventures, an early stage seed and accelerator program from San Francisco that has incubated 16 startups with 3 exits. Mbwana Alliy is a Tanzanian who has a blend of experience in both Silicon Valley, UK and Africa, having worked as a product manager at Microsoft for Excel & Access, systems engineer for QinetiQ and a founder of Tanzania’s first online travel portal and as an Entrepreneur in Residence for i/o ventures.

Savannah Fund is building a mentor-driven network, connecting top local & silicon valley entrepreneurs who have built successful Global & African companies to promising startups on the continent and helps address the concern that many startups in Africa do not have the capacity to absorb larger amounts of growth venture capital.

We are by no means the first accelerator or tech fund in the region, but we believe we are unique and first of a kind to span accelerator to seed financing in the tech space and effectively address a critical funding gap.

The accelerator program is now open for the first class of 5 startups beginning September. www.savannah.vc/accelerator

Further Media inquiries press@savannah.vc

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