The Savannah Fund is an African seed investment fund that aims to “bridge the early stage/angel and venture capital investment gap” in the region. A big part of that strategy is the fund’s startup accelerator — and the deadline to apply is Sunday evening.
The fund says each session will run for three months and operate out of the iHub in Nairobi, Kenya. It’s looking to select five startups and invest $25,000 each in exchange for a 15 percent equity stake.
Manager partner Mbwana Alliy tells me that the accelerator has received 120 applications so far. Startups from around the world can apply, as long as they plan to serve the Sub-Saharan market, but Alliy says that most of the applications come from Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Egypt.
The Savannah Fund was first announced in June. Since then, it also revealed its first investment (not part of the accelerator) in biNu, a startup offering a cloud-based app platform for feature phones and low-end smartphones.
In addition to Alliy, the fund’s managing partners include Erik Hersman, co-founder of Ushahidi and founder of iHub, and i/o ventures managing partner Paul Bragiel.
As for that deadline, one day might not seem like enough time, but the application is pretty simple — you just need to enter some basic info, like interesting projects you’ve been involved with and products that you plan to build. Plus, given the slight vagueness of the wording (“Sunday evening”), there’s a little bit of flexibility as to timing.