The Savannah Fund is a seed accelerator and investment fund focused on tech entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa. It aims to plug the seed funding gap, provide high-quality mentorship through its accelerator program, and help build a sustainable tech startup ecosystem in East Africa with its headquarters in Kenya. The fund will invest $25,000 in 5 startups per cohort through its accelerator program and may provide follow-on funding of $100,000-$500,000 to top performers. It aspires to accelerate 30 teams per year and has a network of local and Silicon Valley mentors to support the startups.

1. Mentor. Accelerate. Invest
Africa’s Seed & accelerator fund
@savannahfund
Developing tech entrepreneurs in subsaharan Africa
iHub Info Session: 26th July 2012
Mbwana Alliy- Managing Partner
@mbwana

2. Covering Today
• Savannah Fund Overview
• Objectives of Savannah Fund
• What we look for?
• Who we fund?
• How we add Value to Startups
• Our Timeline & How to connect
• Q&A

3. Savannah Fund Team
Partners
Erik Hersman: Ushahidi, iHub, Afrilabs, Senior TED &
PopTech Fellow
Paul Bragiel: 3X Tech Entrepreneur (2 exits), I/O Ventures
Managing Partner. Silicon Valley ambassador to the World
Mbwana Alliy: Systems Engineer, Stanford MBA,
Microsoft Product Management, I/O Ventures EIR, 1X
startup
Investment Committee: None.
Advisor: Rachel Pike (Draper Fisher Jurvenson)
We are a fund for entrepreneurs
by entrepreneurs

4. Portfolio
16
4
Mentor Network

5. Objectives
• Plug the seed investment gap
exists in for tech entrepreneurs to
get their ideas from prototype to
scalable business
• Provide High quality mentoring "Most critical challenge facing
via accelerator program to Africa's quest for regional integration
stimulate investment grade is the limited availability of
entrepreneurs technical and entrepreneurial
capabilities. More specifically,
Africa's educational systems have so
• Build a sustainable Early Stage
far paid little attention to training in
Tech investment Ecosystem for
the engineering fields and related
Sub Saharan Africa with Kenya at
business knowledge."- Professor
the core Calestous Juma, Harvard Kennedy
School

6. Journey: Pivot to Pivot
Savannah Fund Talked to over 200 investors
Concept
2011 2012
Jun Sept Dec Mar Jun
Launch
3 months Research
• Reaching out to local mentors (vertical expertise & proven
track records with real time to add)
• Building connections with iHub and Follow on/Co- investors
• Getting ready to start operations and investing

7. Can add value locally and
Differentiation from Silicon Valley
Tech focused seed
fund - accelerate
deal flow Trusted Angel
Network & Co-
investment partners
• 2 classes/year of 5 companies, optional residency in
Silicon Valley ($25k investments 15% stake)
• Follow on and Independent Seed Fund ($100-500k)
• Mentor Network & Early backers from Silicon Valley that
have started companies with over $5B in market value +
Local

8. 30 teams to test
Fund Components prototypes & business
models at $25k in
Accelerator in Kenya.
Follow on & co- ~10/year.
invest in subset Accelerator tests/experiments
of portfolio 7%
(35+) that are
scaling Seed/Series A Follow On + RBF Up to half (15) of
Strategic use of 29% Accelerator
Revenue
graduates Seed
Based
Financing at
Financing (up
Accelerator Seed Follow On about $100-200k
to $500k)
29% for proven model
~$10M with scale
potential
Independent Seed
34%
20+ Investment ready
seed deals between
$150-250k that are already
gaining traction across
Africa

9. Accelerator Outline
• 1st class to begin in mid-late September expected to last 3 months
• Online form + We'll run coding tests + interviews (CodeEval or
Codility)
• Will accept a class of 5 startup/teams per cohort
• Local + Silicon Valley mentors (via "mentor trip") + offsites & dinners
• Work on Creating Value: product, hiring, strategy, business
model, marketing, design, analytics, local/regional scaling
connections, technical scaling
• Ready for Demo Day and invite leading tech focused Investors
• Teams who secure follow on funding can opt for Residency in Silicon
Valley

10. Accelerator Outline
Mentor Trip 1 week Schedule
Office Hours
Conference &
Casual Meetup Keynotes Hands On Help
(iHub) Demo Day
1 week 1 week 1 week
Mentor trip Mentor trip Mentor trip
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Cohort 1 SV Residence Cohort 2 SV Residence
Optional Cross incubation in
Silicon Valley- 6 weeks
Conference & Business Office Hours
1:1 Investor Africa in Silicon
Workshops Development (i/o Ventures) Pitches Valley Demo Day

11. An Accelerator Program designed to empower
Mentoring East Africa startups to scale up rapidly and
effectively, while driving customers and revenues
Categories of Mentoring
Inspiring Mentors Specialist Mentors Local Mentors
• Inspire
• Knowledge Transfer
• Alumni of the Program
• Big Picture, Scaling, • Hone Skills • Provide Local Context
Lessons Learned, etc.
Events
Virtual Link Cross/Incubation
• Mentor Trips
• Connected Presence
• Optional 4-6 weeks
• Offsites
• Mailing List
Silicon Valley
• Demo Day Prep
• Cloud IDE & Code Checking
Confidential

12. Who we fund
• For profit sustainable businesses
• Technical & well rounded teams (the 3 Rs):
Roles, Relationships, Rewards = High
Performing Team
• Focused on Scalable Product or Service
addressing the Subsaharan Africa market
• For the accelerator, core team needs to be in
Nairobi at the iHub during the 3 months
• Teams with a bias on learning & execution
over "IP".
• Not afraid of failure... NEVER GIVE UP

13. 3 Rs (Control vs Maximizing Wealth)

14. James was working within Vodacom and was
frustrated that the mobile money remittance
Who we fund: solution was not being adopted in his home
town of Tanga, so he left his job and
recruited John & Jane (worked weekends),
college friends and bootstrapped on their
savings - their pilot "MVP" is growing 20% a
month in Tanga alone with no marketing.
James, John and Jane are engineer, sales and
designer- They have a prototype mobile money solution
being used with 100 customers in pilot across Kenya &
Tanzania. They plan to hire rock star engineers and
bring on experts to scale and set side equity & expect
dilution to grow the pie size
Bwana James founded the business with his
brother, they desire to conquer the Tanzanian
mobile money market. They have not agreed how
to split equity, they have no prototype because
they have a secret sauce they want to hide from
Vodacom. Looking for $500k to build product and
launch a billboard campaign. He also runs a web
Dev consultancy...

15. Connect with Us
Website: www.savannah.vc
Angel List: www. angel.co/savannah-fund
Twitter: @savannahfund
Resources: www.savannah.vc/resources