The Silicon Savannah - an insider's view

"Nairobi has gotten a lot of press over the past few years as the rising “Silicon Savannah” of Africa – a hub for tech start-ups in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of the press is legit, but there is also a bit of hype. I’ve been a participant in Nairobi’s tech scene since 2012 when I discovered the iHub, a year after moving here in 2011. I thought I would share my notes here for those who want to get a real picture of what is going on in the “Silicon Savannah.”...."

http://vc4africa.biz/blog/2014/07/18/the-silicon-savannah-an-insiders-view/ 

How Savannah Fund is connecting African startups to Silicon Valley

http://www.smesouthafrica.co.za/startups/connecting-african-startups-to-silicon-valley/

"Local tech startups just received another boost with American Venture Capital Savannah Fund‘s arrival on South African shores. The seed capital firm made its first move into South Africa by buying into two Cape Town-based startups...."

Silicon Cape Initiative

"We're a community of tech entrepreneurs, developers, creatives, angel investors, and VC's who are passionate about entrepreneurship and the roles we play in the future of South Africa.

The Silicon Cape Initiative is a non-profit, community owned and driven movement, that aims to improve the environment in the Western Cape to create more and better startups as well as increase access to capital...."

 http://www.siliconcape.com/

Bridging the Gap among Silicon Cape Tech Start-Ups

"Entrepreneur Traction, an established network of tech experts, is seeking to fill the gap and reduce the fragmentation seen in Cape Town’s tech start up community, by introducing a series of high profile networking breakfasts aimed at driving partnerships and collaborations set to put promising local tech businesses on the global map.

With Cape Town becoming a colourful and fast growing hub of vibrant tech innovators, the Western Cape is expected to play a significant role in driving job creation as an economic driver for the country.

“The emerging technology sector in SA, however is already a critical economic driver for the country, as we see a healthy demand and rapid adoption of technologies among African businesses, spanning the telecommunications, e-commerce and IT industries”, says Eric Edelstein co-founder of Entrepreneur Traction.

Edelstein explains that although there is a healthy stream of exciting opportunities for tech entrepreneurs starting up on African soil, there are also many obstacles and challenges that contribute to the high number of these businesses going under within the first 20 months of operating. “So many factors contribute towards these hi-tech start-ups failing such as lack of business experience and support from government; limited opportunities to access capital, shortage of developers and product experts or simply a lack of confidence and hesitance to take the risks necessary to succeed.”

“This, coupled with the existing fragmentation among these start-ups in the Silicon Cape region made us aware of a burning need to bring like-minded tech entrepreneurs together to collaborate, innovate and problem solve collectively rather than in silos.” Edelstein believes that if this inherent problem in the industry can be resolved, then SA’s tech sector will have the ability to impact the global technology industry.

“The rapid growth in SA’s tech start-up space has inevitably resulted in an inundation of workshops, seminars and sales pitches, in an effort to enable and educate tech entrepreneurs”, says Ariel Navarro, CEO of Entrepreneur Traction. “Although there is a solid place for education, we see a significant need for simply providing a quality environment for tech entrepreneurs to network with substance. We would ultimately like to see collaborations and business partnerships becoming success stories through the exclusive network that we are creating.”

With inroads to some of the greatest minds in the tech world, locally and abroad, Entrepreneur Traction will be hosting a mystery speaker at each and every monthly intervention, only to be revealed at each event.

Young tech entrepreneurs who are hungry and passionate to grow themselves and their organisations are encouraged to register online in order to be considered for inclusion in this vibrant community.

About Entrepreneur Traction

Entrepreneur Traction is an established and growing network of tech entrepreneurs, seeking to drive collaborations and partnerships among local tech start-ups, to build the next generation of technology companies in South Africa.

For more information visit http://www.entrepreneurtraction.co.za/..."

 http://www.siliconcape.com/profiles/blogs/bridging-the-gap-among-silicon-cape-tech-start-ups

TLcom

"The success of others

TLcom is dedicated to the success of entrepreneurs and investors. Success in technology ventures is created by teams of exceptional people working inside and around a company, focused on delivering on an ambitious, market driven business vision. We look for entrepreneurs with the ability to identify an innovative solution to a relevant need, and the humility to recognize the need to align multiple contributions in order to achieve tangible results. TLcom works for the success of the entrepreneur by providing, in addition to finance, deep company building expertise based on the experience and breadth of skills within our team. By combining the relevant mix of technology, strategy and finance skills, we can help the best entrepreneurs create superior execution and a long-term competitive advantage.

Investors’ returns are pursued by backing superior entrepreneurs targeting relevant market opportunities, and helping them build companies whose value is recognized and ultimately monetized by other industry players and capital markets.

About us

TLcom Capital LLP is a London and Nairobi based venture capital firm investing since 1999 in Telecom, Media and Technology (TMT) companies across Europe and Israel expanding to Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). TLcom currently manages total commitments of approximately €200 million in these sectors via a series of dedicated investment vehicles, including the TLcom I and TLcom II primary funds and other technology portfolios acquired on the secondary market. TLcom delivers equity capital as part of a larger strategic and operational support to entrepreneurs, leveraging a senior team of business building investment professionals combining global industry expertise with local transaction and management experience.

TLcom is now launching the TLcom TIDE (Technology and Innovation for Developing Economies) Africa Fund, focusing on fast growth scalable companies leveraging largely existing technologies and innovative business models to accelerate access to severely underserved core verticals enjoying exploding demand, such as financial and business services, commerce and energy.

TLcom Capital LLP is FCA registered and is a member of EMPEA..."

 http://www.tlcom.co.uk/index.php

Adlevo Capital

"We are a Mauritius-based private equity fund manager founded on the belief that meaningful development in sub-Saharan Africa will be driven by the application of technology to business processes across all sectors.

Investment Focus

We make equity and equity-linked investments in rapidly growing private companies in various stages of development. These companies derive their competitive advantage from the development and exploitation of technology or technology-driven processes,

Adlevo Capital seeks to invest in companies that possess the following characteristics:

• Strong management team
• Large market opportunity
• Consumer driven growth
• Positive impact on WIRED attributes (click here to view details)..."

http://www.adlevocapital.com/index.html

Knife Capital

"KnifeCap is a Southern African growth equity fund manager focusing on technology-enabled ventures for a sustainable impact on innovation, job creation and growth.

What we do

HBD VENTURE CAPITAL KnifeCap manages HBD Venture Capital's South African portfolio of investments. HBD VC is a South African Venture Capital Fund founded by Mark Shuttleworth in 2000. HBD (an acronym for "Here Be Dragons" - a term used in ancient times to mark unchartered territories on maps) offered growth capital to a range of early stage businesses. The fund is now fully invested and its current focus is on growing its investments to achieve successful exits.

KNIFE CAPITAL GROWTH EQUITY FUND KnifeCap is currently in the process of raising a Growth Equity Fund with first closing of between R100m and R150m. The investment targets in need of expansion capital will have existing revenue flow and a verifiable customer base, matched by significant market potential. Investment size will range between R10m and R30m per first round investment. For more information on participating as a Limited Partner contact us.

KNIFE KNOWLEDGE KnifeCap provides consulting, training and business acceleration services to high-growth early-stage ventures in Southern Africa. We are committed to creating African success stories and filling critical gaps in the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. The team is deeply involved in skills-, technology- and knowledge transfer initiatives to groom skilled entrepreneurs as the future leadership class of Africa – a new generation of role models.

FIND-MAKE-GROW-REALISE KnifeCap partnered with the UCT Graduate School of Business to present an Executive Education Programme:
Find - Make - Grow - Realise: Investing in early-stage growth companies. This participative, case-study-driven course is designed to provide investors and entrepreneurs with a deep understanding of the high-growth investment process and is presented periodically in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

GRINDSTONE ACCELERATOR The Grindstone Accelerator is a new structured acceleration initiative that will assist 50 high-growth technology-enabled companies to become sustainable and fundable. This will be done via a range of services designed to build a foundation for growth, create relevant business networks and enable these companies to take advantage of market access opportunities.
For more information or to apply for the programme, click here

BIZSPARK The KnifeCap/ BizSpark programme is a collaboration with Microsoft where we aim to assist local startups through the provision of a growth gap analysis, development tools and business support. To qualify for BizSpark in SA, a startup must be developing software or apps; be privately held; generating less than R5 million in annual revenue; and be less than 5 years old. Start your application process here."

http://www.knifecap.com/index.php