Are you running a tech startup and want to transform the agriculture and food tech industry in Africa? Do you have a tech solution that makes the industry more sustainable and profitable while at the same time empowering value chain actors? Do you want support in raising investment, reaching more customers, and having a significant impact?
Then this unique (and free!) investment readiness program is for you!
Benefits
The SAIS Investment Readiness Programme (IRP) offers you a yearlong, tailor-made support program to raise investments and scale up your business! The precondition is that your tech startup is registered in Africa, works in Africa, and offers scalable, market-based solutions for agriculture, food, or climate change. The Programme is available in English and French.
Sessions of personalized coaching with local and international experts. These are tailored to your specific needs to develop and implement strategies for rapid growth.
Sessions of personalized coaching with local and international experts. These are tailored to your specific needs to develop and implement strategies for rapid growth.
Access to additional services to optimize certain key areas of your business They hold a specific budget that can cover, e.g. legal advice, online marketing, digital product optimization, design, coding, and travel costs to conferences.
Integrating you into ecosystems. they offer you the opportunity to use a local hub or office space, connect you with peers, support you in increasing your visibility, and facilitate contacts with major players in the local, regional, and international startup ecosystems.
Access to our investor and partner network. By being part of our program, you will be given the opportunity to meet the right people on regional, national, and international levels to scale your business, either through potential investments or business partnerships.
Add-on: Programme for Female Leaders. In addition to the above-mentioned, they offer special support for female founders and women in leading positions of the startups through networking and peer-to-peer learning as well as increased visibility.
SAIS Investment Readiness is a Pan-African program for African tech startups from the agriculture, food sector, and climate sectors (specifically including the livestock sector, that want to scale their business). The Investment Readiness Program (IRP) aims to improve investor readiness so that the startups supported can raise more capital to reach more customers and achieve greater impact.
The IRP is offered by “Scaling digital Agriculture Innovations through Startup (SAIS)”, a project implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). It is co-funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Our overall goal at SAIS is to increase incomes in the African agri-food sector through scaling proven digital innovations.
For 2024, up to 20 startups will be selected to participate in our yearlong Programme. Since 2019, SAIS has accelerated more than 46 outstanding FoodTech and AgTech startups:
Eligibility
To be eligible for the SAIS Investment Readiness Program, you must meet the following conditions:
You must be registered and operate in Africa. You must provide a certificate of registration.
You must have a team of at least two people who work ideally full-time for the startup.
Your founding and management team should have entrepreneurial and technical experience in their area of operation.
You must have a viable digital product or service that positively impacts society. Your product must have a positive impact on the African AgTech or FoodTech sector, we specifically welcome applications from the livestock sector (vertical sectors that have an influence can be accepted like ClimateTech, eCommerce, FinTech, Logistics, EdTech, and others).
You must have launched your digital product at least six months before you submit your application to us.
Your startups must provide evidence of traction (customer base, first revenue).
Your startup should have an understandable and convincing business model.
This includes a clear statement of the problem, a clear digital solution, a clear customer segment, and a clear revenue stream.
You are a female founder, or your team has women in high management positions.
You or one of your founding team members has an IT background.
You and your founding team members have previous startup experience.
Your product targets a vulnerable group of customers.
