Africa: Savannah Fund's Mbwana Alliy On the Barriers to Start-Up Success, His Favorite Start-U.S in E-Commerce and Bit Coin and the Safaricom Mistake

The equity gap in Africa is no different from many places elsewhere globally. It's the small end funding for start-ups who have little more than a compelling idea and in most cases in Africa little or no previous business track record. Tanzanian Mbwana Alliy set up Savannah Fund to meet this need across Africa. Russell Southwood caught up with him at Nairobi's iHub.

Mbwana Alliy had been working in the USA for eight years and ended up with a job at at an accelerator on the West Coast. His friends kept saying to him, you have to go back to Africa and do venture capital. And as he says with a smile, eventually his excuses ran out and that's what he did. In Spring 2012 he raised US$0.5 million from his network in Silicon Valley (which includes Tim Draper, Draper Fisher Jurvetson).

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