Savant
Pre-Seed Fund
Savant is a sector agnostic incubator and venture capital company that exists to help hardware technology businesses conceptualize, invent and scale.
We invest in South African hardware technology companies that are underpinned by locally developed science and engineering innovation. Our aim is to promote South African companies that have developed products that appeal to both local and international markets and have a sustainable competitive advantage.
Our technology development Pre-Seed Fund is supported by the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), aimed at assisting knowledge economy based SMMEs to access bridging finance to advance their innovative ideas to market. Savant developed an incubation program that can effectively guide the startups to grow their ideas into commercial ventures.
Our Pre-Seed Fund is supported by the Savant Venture Fund and focuses on early-stage technology companies that need to refine their technology development and market entry. The fund was established to strategically prepare companies for a follow on investment from the Savant Venture Fund.
Investment Mandate
Our Pre-Seed Fund invests in early stage science and engineering-based hardware, deep-tech and IoT startups with both local and international market opportunities.
We invest early in world-class founders attacking large, global markets. We believe at the core of a great business, is a great team. We look for teams that are passionate, driven, and coachable. We are active investors and get involved in growing and developing the business, in order to realise value. We invest from R250 000 to R1 500 000 using SAFEs, convertible notes and other relevant early stage funding mechanisms.
Investment Structure
Our Pre-Seed fund investments are typically structured as SAFE Notes. A SAFE acts like convertible debt without the interest rate, maturity, and repayment requirement. Click here to view Y-Combinator on SAFE Notes:
Pre-Seed Fund Portfolio
News
Wesgro’s Health Tech Industry Edition: Vekta
The third edition of Wesgro’s Pioneer’s magazine celebrates the leaders, the innovators and the trailblazers in the health tech industry operating in Cape Town and
Founders Factory Africa Invests In Akili
Founders Factory Africa has accepted Akili Labs as one of five more African tech start-ups into its Venture Scale programme, which provides GBP30,000 (US$40,000) in investment
Meet Savant’s 2019 Seed Fund Beneficiaries
Four Cape Town based start-ups have collectively landed over R2.7-million in seed grants from the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), administered by Savant, a hardware tech