Africa’s Seed & accelerator fundMentor. Accelerate. Invest

Developing tech entrepreneurs in subsaharan Africa @savannahfund

Mbwana Alliy- Managing Partner

@mbwana

iHub Info Session: 26th July 2012

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

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

Mentor Network

16

Objectives

• Plug the seed investment gap exists in for tech entrepreneurs to get their ideas from prototype to scalable business

• Provide High quality mentoring via accelerator program to stimulate investment grade entrepreneurs

• Build a sustainable Early Stage Tech investment Ecosystem for Sub Saharan Africa with Kenya at the core

"Most critical challenge facing Africa's quest for regional integration is the limited availability of technical and entrepreneurial capabilities. More specifically, Africa's educational systems have so far paid little attention to training in the engineering fields and related business knowledge."- Professor Calestous Juma, Harvard Kennedy School

Journey: Pivot to Pivot

Savannah Fund Concept

Talked to over 200 investors

3 months Research

DecJun Sept Mar Jun

2011 2012

Launch

• 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

Differentiation

• 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

Can add value locally and from Silicon Valley

Trusted Angel Network & Co-

investment partners

Tech focused seed fund - accelerate

deal flow

Seed/Series A Follow On + RBF29%

Independent Seed34%

Accelerator Seed Follow On29%

Accelerator tests/experiments7%

~$10M

30 teams to test prototypes & business models at $25k in Accelerator in Kenya. ~10/year.

Up to half (15) of Accelerator graduates Seed Financing at about $100-200k for proven model with scale potential

20+ Investment ready seed deals between $150-250k that are already gaining traction across Africa

Follow on & co-invest in subset of portfolio (35+) that are scaling Strategic use of Revenue Based Financing (up to $500k)

Fund Components

• 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

Accelerator Outline

1 week Mentor trip

Mentor Trip 1 week Schedule

Optional Cross incubation in Silicon Valley- 6 weeks

Casual Meetup Keynotes Office Hours (iHub) Hands On Help Conference &

Demo Day

Q1 Cohort 1

Q2 SV Residence

Q3 Cohort 2

Q4 SV Residence

Conference & Workshops

Business Development

Office Hours (i/o Ventures)

1:1 Investor Pitches

Africa in Silicon Valley Demo Day

1 week Mentor trip

1 week Mentor trip

Accelerator Outline

Mentoring

Inspiring Mentors Specialist Mentors• Inspire • Big Picture, Scaling,

Lessons Learned, etc.

• Knowledge Transfer • Hone Skills

Cross/Incubation

An Accelerator Program designed to empower East Africa startups to scale up rapidly and effectively, while driving customers and revenues

Virtual Link• Connected Presence • Mailing List • Cloud IDE & Code Checking

• Optional 4-6 weeks

Silicon Valley

Local Mentors• Alumni of the Program • Provide Local Context

Categories of Mentoring

Confidential

Events • Mentor Trips • Offsites • Demo Day Prep

• 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

Who we fund

3 Rs (Control vs Maximizing Wealth)

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...

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

James was working within Vodacom and was frustrated that the mobile money remittance 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.

Who we fund:

Connect with Us

Website: www.savannah.vc

Angel List: www. angel.co/savannah-fund

Twitter: @savannahfund

Resources: www.savannah.vc/resources