Kenya’s Savannah Fund takes on 3 new startups for acceleration

You probably know Savannah Fund as one of the few venture capital firms on the continent and some of you may remember them for being part of biNu’s 2012 series A funding, which we wrote about back then. So yes, it’s been a while since we covered them, and there’s quite a bit to say about the fund and startups they have invested in since then.

We’ll focus this post though on an announcement they made 3 days ago of a new batch of startups they are taking in for a 3 month long acceleration program. It’s 3 startups, from Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya. Here:

BiGxGh.com
A top Ghanaian music website providing music downloads, lyrics, news and music video. The site, according to Savannah, got an impressive 20 million “site views” (we’re guessing this means visits) last year alone! And their YouTube channel, BiGxGhMedia, is one of Ghana’s top YouTube channels. The site was founded by Prince Boakye Boampong.

UniSmart
This is a Nigerian service provides discounts and deals for students via a loyalty platform. The startup is already working with top brands like Nike, Puma and Levis and currently has about 1,000 users.

UniSmart themselves says this about why their service is a big deal:

Retailers worldwide run student discount programmes however until UniSmart it has been impossible to 100% verify a Nigerian student…. UniSmart works and partners with the leading educational institutions, retailers and merchants in Nigeria and around the world to verify student status and ensure Nigerian students save when they spend.

UniSmart has already partnered University of Lagos, which is Nigeria’s largest university.

SokoShambani by Zevan Limited
This Kenyan startup ensures that trucks serving Kenyan farmers never do a ‘return’ trip where they are not carrying anything, through what is called a “return-trip systemization and optimization platform (RTSOP)”. Apparently they are already used by 3 large logistics company and have so far rerouted some 177 trips. They also do other stuff, the full list which is here on their website.

You can see a full list of startups they have invested in to date here.