Savannah Fund To Invest $25 million In African Startups

Savannah Fund is a Sub-Saharan tech venture capital firm focused on Africa, it launched in 2012 and was founded by Mbwana Alliy and Paul Bragiel. Records shows that the capital firm has already invested in 31 companies across seven different countries across the continent of Africa.

Savannah Fund has launched a new fund and seeks to invest $25 million in African startups. The focus of this new fund is on Sub-Saharan startups that are still in their early stage and are founded by women, along with disruptive companies in high-growth sectors. According to Kevin Njirani; International Finance Corporation’s Regional Director for Southern African and Nigeria, early stage startups can contribute to the overall economy if invested in and focused upon. He said that, ‘Early-stage startups is vital to enable more of Africa’s emerging and growing tech founders to grow their business and fuel the transformation of Africa’s Internet economy. By partnering with Savannah Fund, we can help more entrepreneurs to access funding’.

Mbwana Alliy, one of the founders of Savannah Fund said that, ‘Savannah Fund II will continue its long-term mission to partner with ambitious founders building startups that will scale across Africa. Entrepreneurs in Residence, especially female founders, are a key part of our investment strategy. We’re proud to partner with WeFi to further expand and encourage female founders on the continent’.

Savannah Fund plans to provide funding to Series A investments in core markets in Africa that are located in Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. Savannah Fund also has plans to look into the emerging markets in Ghana, East Africa, Rwanda, Ethiopia and the Ivory Coast.

Savannah Fund provided an in-look into the startups it has included in its portfolio regarding the new fund in an official press statement that says, ‘As part of this second fund formation, Mbwana and Paul warehoused seven startups into this latest Fund’s portfolio; these includes Aero robotics from South Africa in the Agtech space, IoT and Analytics startup Safi, Moringa School – both got started in Kenya. Flex.club, subscription mobility startup operating in South Africa and Mexico. More recently, we have backed pre-seed rounds of Orbit Health in Ethiopia and Cloud Kitchen company Ando Foods in Kenya’.