88mph Expands Its African Operations to Include South Africa
November 22nd, 2012
22.11.2012, Cape Town, South Africa
88mph, an early stage startup fund and 3 month accelerator program has launched in Cape Town. The program assists startups by giving them investment, access to business networks and the know how to quickly grow their businesses. 88mph’s strategy in Africa is to fund strong teams with web-mobile ideas that have the ability to scale across English speaking Africa.
“The startups we look at are often small teams who lack experience and the network necessary to quickly grow their businesses. They often struggle to focus on their product and customers due to the multitude of other things that need time and attention, like admin tasks, office related issues and finding follow-on investment,” says 88mph founder Kresten Buch.
That’s why, in addition to funding, the 88mph team in Cape Town has put together talent and resources, to add more value for the startups:
- A partnership with Google has enabled the right space and internet resources to build tech companies, as well as access to Google’s experienced web professionals who can mentor the startups.
- A host of highly experienced local South African and global mentors have been added to the already top-notch 88mph mentor network.
- Furthermore, 7 “Entrepreneurs-in-residence” – experienced entrepreneurs, specialized in sales, programming & web design – are being brought in from Europe and the US to work side by side with the local startups during the 3-month acceleration.
- Finally, 88mph arranges a demo day, where the startups will get access to a group of investors to showcase what they’ve achieved so far.
Earlier this year 88mph invested in 8 web-mobile startups in Nairobi. The 3-month program to accelerate the growth of those startups in Nairobi is now on its final leg, and the startups are preparing to demo their products & services to a hoard of investors on December 13th. They have been working towards this day since the program started, and now they hope to get enough follow-on funding to be able to scale their businesses across Africa.
The speed at which the mobile internet has reached the markets of Africa, now at 274 million Africans on Edge or 3G, has created a huge demand for local applications and services catering to the young and growing middle classes of Africa. 88mph is here to fund start-ups wishing to grab a portion of this growing market. So far, they have invested over $500,000 into 15 early stage start-ups. With a new fund nearly closed, they intend to continue investing, this time aiming to invest in over 10 startups in the far south of Africa.
The combination of a large market, young population and opportunities within the mobile/web industry makes this accelerator attractive to any tech entrepreneurs who are looking to solve real challenges in Africa.
“Looking 2-5 years ahead, the US and Europe will be stagnating at best. I think the biggest opportunities for return on investment will be in Africa and other emerging markets. Our accelerator program is a great opportunity for international tech entrepreneurs and returning diaspora to come, take advantage of the insane growth here, and work on solving some really interesting problems,” concludes Buch.
Additional Information:
- Application deadline is midnight December 15th, 2012
- Startups can apply now on www.88mph.ac
- 88mph invests up to $100k per startup
- Equity will depend on the startup company valuations, which could range from $100k to $1mil
- Altogether 8 – 15 teams will receive an investment and get accepted into the 3-month program
- The teams will be notified if they have been accepted to the program by January 20th, 2013
- Program starts on February 1st at the 88mph Garage by Woodstock in Cape Town, South Africa
- Startups in the program will have access to tech hubs in Nairobi and Cape Town, as well as to 88mph’s partner tech hubs across Africa
ABOUT 88MPH
The team behind 88mph first came to Africa in 2010 when they set up a 48-hour investment boot camp; this event resulted in an investment in M-Farm, an SMS service that helped small farmers get access to the market price of their crops. Since then, 88mph has added 15 startups to its portfolio, all mobile-web based businesses.
This last round in Nairobi included a mobile music startup, Mdundo, and an airtime credit startup, Nanovas, All the startups from this time around are generating revenues. So far one of 88mph investments, Futaa, has received follow-on funding and expanded into other African countries.
88mph is a privately backed fund.
For more information contact:
Chwayita Nqiwa
Public Relations, 88mph
+27 74 258 4275
press@88mph.ac
Jennifer Browarczyk
Program Manager, 88mph Cape Town
+27 (0) 84 988 7093
jb@88mph.ac