[Investor Journey] Bridging Silicon Valley & Africa - Mbwana Alliy (Savannah) on fund structuring, LPs and retaining scale-up talent

This episode takes us out of our lockdown homes over to Eastern Africa, where Mbwana with his team is building Savannah Fund, an early stage VC.
After taking Russel Simons  (Co-founder @Yelp) out on Safari, he became a crucial backer in Fund I.  Recently Savannah reached a first close of their second fund at US$ 25M with the backing of IFC and Silicon Valley legend Tim Draper (IFC press release here).
To date Savannah has invested in +30 deals across the continent and their portfolio companies have raised a consolidated US$ 118M across subsequent rounds.

Mbwana makes a compelling case for the African ecosystem, its strong potential, the importance of retaining talent and the challenges of creating track record in a nascent ecosystem, especially on raising your fund whilst building the ecosystem around you at the same time.

On this show you will learn: 

• The state of the African ecosystem, its potential, key markets, top entrepreneurs and key sectors 
• Mbwana's journey, after more than 15 years abroad in the UK and the US returning to Africa to pay it forward and build Savannah
• How to educate LPs, structure your fund and develop your VC thesis in a nascent ecosystem 

You can find Mbwana on LinkedIn here, and on Twitter
More about Savannah Fund on their website

Check out the TechCrunch article covering Savannah here.

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If you are interested in more shows and content on emerging markets investing and company building follow me on twitter @pat_travels or via LinkedIn.