SAIS Investment Readiness Programme 2025

For African Tech Start-ups in Agriculture, Livestock, Food and Climate

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Are you running a tech start-up with a positive impact for agriculture, livestock, food or climate in Africa? Do you need support to raise investment, reach more customers and increase your impact?

Then this free investment readiness programme is for you!

The SAIS Investment Readiness Programme (IRP) offers a year-long, tailor-made company development programme for African tech start-ups in agriculture, livestock, food, and climate. The IRP – available in French and English – aims to support you to raise investments and scale up your business!

Apply until 2 September by completing the application form and watch the recordings of our info sessions that were held on Thursday, 15 August in French and English and where we answered questions related to the programme and the application process.

Overview

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September 2, 2024
OrganizerSAIS
Targets Africa
Sectors Agribusiness, Agritech, Food production
Partner Organization SAIS image of SAIS LOGO
2767 followers
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What we offer

Selected start-ups receive services worth up to 35,000 EUR including:

  • Mentorship and coaching with local and international experts tailored to your specific needs to develop and implement strategies for rapid growth.
  • Additional services & technical resources to optimise certain key areas of your business, e.g. legal advice, online marketing, digital product optimization, design, and coding.
  • Individual trainings, e.g. pitch training, growth strategy, data analytics & management, term sheet, valuation, market analysis, marketing & sales.
  • Investment and partnership facilitation, e.g. guidance on fundraising strategy, preparation of fundraising rounds, support for due-diligence processes, introduction to investors & funds.
  • Networking and showcasing opportunities at two in-person community events scheduled back-to-back with the Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi, and one additional sector conference (travel costs for one representative from each start-up are covered by the programme).
  • Community exchanges and peer-learning, e.g. virtual group trainings and workshops, company visits, deal rooms, topical exchanges and inputs from external speakers and guests.

Add-ons on an as-needed basis:

  • Programme for Female Leaders: networking, peer-to-peer learning and increased visibility for female founders and women in leading positions.
  • Cash2Start-ups: access to working capital loans of up to 50,000 EUR for up to 9 months, designed to support your growth.
  • Digital Agency Support: targeted technical assistance to start-ups to work on their digital components and become more data driven.

Who can apply

To be eligible for the programme, your company must meet the following minimum requirements:

  • Be registered in Africa
  • Be for-profit
  • Have a minimum viable product
  • Have a digital or tech-enabled solution for the agriculture, food or livestock value chain
  • Have a management team of at least two people
  • Have evidence of traction (paying customers, first revenue)
  • Contribute to climate change adaptation, income generation and/or food & nutrition security

Programme timeline

 

August to November 2024 | Selection Process

SAIS and VC4A hosted two info sessions-webinars aiming to answer your questions about the program and the eligibility criteria, criteria of selection, program overview, timeline and more.

The session was held on August 15, 2024 in both English and French, you can watch the recorded session here.

Complete the online application form in English or in French to apply to the programme by Monday, 2 September 2024 at 23:59 CET (German time). SAIS will review the online applications and invite long-listed applicants for interviews which will take place in October. SAIS aims to notify selected start-ups by mid-November 2024.

December 2024 to March 2025 | Needs Assessment and Development Planning

We will conduct a virtual onboarding session in December where you will e-meet your fellow innovators. You will be paired with a navigator from the SAIS team who serves as your main point of contact during the programme. Together with your navigator, you will draft a development plan specifying your support needs and planning for the deployment of the SAIS IRP services. Where possible, your navigator will conduct a field visit to better understand your business model, operations, and customers.

February 2025 | In-person Kick-off at SAIStival 2025

The SAIStival is our programme’s unique community & networking event where we bring together portfolio and alumni start-ups. SAIStival 2025 will take place from 9 to 11 February 2025 (tbc) in Nairobi, Kenya, back-to-back with the Africa Tech Summit 2025 (12 to 13 February).

March to September 2025 | Execution of Development Plans

During this period, you and your navigator will implement the activities and tasks defined in your development plan and deploy targeted support measures together with the SAIS network of mentors, experts, and partners. Regular virtual check-ins with your navigator will help you stay on track. We also organize monthly community and peer-learning events on a range of topics and through a mix of formats, also inviting external speakers and guests. In September 2025, we convene for a virtual midterm check-in to reflect on your progress and set milestones for the next stage.

September 2025 to February 2026 | Investment Exposure & Deal Facilitation

For the last stretch of the programme, we focus helping you raise additional capital and investment to scale your impact. For start-ups that are actively fundraising, we provide strategic support and guidance for outreach to investors & funds. Where suitable, we sponsor trips to selected sector conferences or exhibitions.

February 2026 | In-person Graduation from the Programme at SAIStival 2026

SAIStival 2026 marks your official graduation from the SAIS Investment Readiness Programme while we also welcome the new cohort.

About SAIS

The SAIS Investment Readiness Programme 2025 is offered by “Scaling digital Agriculture Innovations through Start-ups (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 and the Bayer Cares Foundation. You can find more information about us and our team here or on our LinkedIn page.

Since 2019, SAIS has accelerated more than 90 start-ups:

Frequently asked questions

In the following FAQs, we attempt to clarify some of the common questions applicants raise. If you have any further questions that are not answered here, please don’t hesitate to contact us by email at SAIS@giz.de.

We do not invest ourselves, but we help you to make your business investment-ready and connect you with our network of investors and partners. Unlike other accelerator or investment programmes, we do not acquire shares of the companies that successfully applied to our IRPs.

We try to avoid accepting direct competitor companies from the same country into the same cohort.

If selected, start-ups should be committed to:

  • Nominate a team member like the CEO, co-founder or another member of the management team who commits an average of 2 hours per week to the programme and who serves as focal point for SAIS for the duration of the programme.
  • Participate actively in virtual events.
  • Nominate and dispatch one employee for at least two in-person community events (SAIStival).
  • Provide data on the company’s progress and growth from the start of the IRP until at least one year after the end of the programme, including but not limited to data on: revenue, number of users, customers, funds raised and number of employees (Note that this data will only be collected to track the progress of each start-up in compliance with data protection requirements).
  • Facilitate access to customers or clients for the purpose of impact evaluation of your product/service/technology through surveys.
  • Collaborate with contracted experts and service providers to implement targeted technical support measures (this may include sharing relevant business data and documents to support needs assessments and due-diligence).
  • Participate in lesson-learning and experience-sharing activities for internal and public audiences.

Companies that graduate from the programme stay part of the SAIS community: You can continue to participate in the monthly community and peer-learning events and we will keep you notified of upcoming fundraising & support opportunities. Motivated start-up founders can sign up to become mentors for start-ups in the next cohort.

If your company does not have an office, we can support you to access a local hub or co-working space to provide a workplace for you and your team.

Yes, we have a special track for start-ups from francophone countries in Africa and mentors and experts from these regions, so we can cover the needs of French speaking teams.

Yes, though we do not recommend going through multiple programmes simultaneously. The time commitment to different programmes at the same time will be challenging for you.

A Navigator is a member from the SAIS team who will be your main contact point for the duration of the programme. Your navigator will visit you on-site (if possible), assess your support needs, help you set goals and milestones in your development plan, and regularly check-in with you on your progress.

Actively participate and ask questions in one of our upcoming info sessions.

The video is required for the application process. We are not looking for a professionally produced video; we want to see what you are working on, why you’re excited about it, how your team works together, and what makes you unique. You can record a video with your phone but make sure the audio quality is good.

Please reach out to VC4A directly for any support needed with your application after submission. You can reach out to Akram from the VC4A team. Please note that this is only intended for technical matters only (i.e. difficulty uploading a document, difficulty uploading pitch video, changing pitch deck version attached, etc.) other non-technical matters will be disregarded.

We use seven criteria to measure the investment readiness of a start-ups during the programme:

  1. Founding team
The competencies and structures of the founding team are improved (in the area of leadership, networking, management, evaluation, distribution of tasks in the team, etc.)
  1. Data room & due diligence
The business data (data room) is updated and improved and all necessary documents for a “due diligence” are available (e. g. pitch deck, annual balance sheet, accounting report etc.)
  1. Data analytics
A digital system for monitoring the start-up’s user base is established and used (“data analytics”)
  1. Market & competition analysis
A market and competition analysis of the start-up for its own market and possible expansion markets is available and used
  1. Marketing & Sales
A strategy and catalogue of measures for marketing & sales are available and guide the actions of the founding team to scale the start-up
  1. Product
The digital product of the start-up is customer-focused and marketable (e.g. adapted to the target customer and target market, data security guaranteed, in line with national regulations, etc.)
  1. Customer growth
The start-up’s customer growth is positively improved

These indicators are based on what investors look at and addressing them will help you to raise investment. In addition to investment readiness, we measure the customer growth of the start-ups, their impact on the income of their customers, food security and climate adaptation, and of course the investments raised during the programme until one year after.

If you have worked with GIZ as an employee or contractor, please let us know and indicate this clearly in the application. Most of the time, this is not an issue. If you have questions in advance, reach out to us via SAIS@giz.de.

We highly recommend that your founding team works in the company full-time so that you can focus on your business. But we fully understand your decision not to quit your previous job, especially if your start-up is still early stage.

We don’t exclude applications just because they have a single founder. But we look for teams with a range of complementary skills. Therefore, we highly recommend you seek co-founders who balance your skillset. If you are a single founder, you should build a strong management team around you.

No, it is not.

No! We treat all data and information given in the application in a proper and confidential manner. We take measures to protect your data and information, as this guarantees our core business model and good reputation.

 

No, you just have to fill out the application form.

Yes, it is not a requirement that your technology development is done in-house.

Please get in touch with us at sais@giz.de and tell us about the company and why you think they’ll be a good fit.

Yes, VC4A is our partner supporting us in the selection of start-ups. They also actively reach out to companies on our behalf and inform them about the open call for application.

Team