Safaricom this morning launched the Safaricom Spark Venture Fund, a venture capital fund targeting young tech businesses.
Here is all you need to know about it.
The fund
The fund has been set up for an initial period of 2 years. The chairman of the fund is Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore and Nzioka Waita, the Corporate Affairs director is one of the trustees. If it is successful then the Safaricom board will add more money to the fund. The target for the fund is young people, women and projects that have social impact in areas like education, health, security and transport.
Fund size
Safaricom has invested USD 1 million (Ksh. 90 million) in the fund. The fund manager will take 10% of the funds invested and so the funds that will be available to startups will be USD 900,000 (Ksh. 81 million).
Fund Managers
The fund will be managed by TBL Invest led by its Managing Partner Eline Blaauboer. TBL is part of the TBL Mirror Fund that has invested in Kenyan companies like Cellulant, Highlands Mineral Water, Meridian Medical Centres among others (See full portfolio HERE).
Eligible Startups
To be eligible to get funding from the venture fund, startups must have the following:
1. A mobile technology solution
2. Have to be operating in the following spaces
- Mobile commerce/Payments
- Youth, Media Content and Infotainment
- SME and Cloud solutions
- Data and Messaging
3. Have to be operating in Kenya
4. Have to have a working product and viable business model
5. Active user base
Startup funding
Startups will be eligible to get funding of between USD 75,000 (Ksh. 6,750,000) and USD 250,000 (Ksh. 22,500,000).
For more information, go to safaricom.co.ke/spark