It is a rare privilege to start a new year with so much to look forward to and with so much excitement and anticipation for the opportunities that lie ahead for Savant, our team and the start-ups we work with.

2022 was an unparalleled year for Savant. It felt like all our efforts of the previous year’s were all finally coming together.

A remarkable team, a supportive and engaged ecosystem, and a lot of hard work have enabled us to lay a firm foundation that we are now able to build and grow on. We are excited be creating greater value and offerings for the start-ups and the ecosystem we serve.

By the end of this year Savant Venture Fund I will be fully invested, which is a significant milestone for us. As an organisation, we will also be adopting a pan-African perspective, which will allow us to support entrepreneurs across the continent and to assist even more incredible companies.

 

“Our incubation, investment readiness and corporate venture programmes will allow us to ensure that startups across the continent get the support they need to scale.”

 

At Savant we believe in teamwork. Collaboration and networking are the cornerstones of any successful venture. With our broader perspective comes the potential for new relationships, new growth and of course, the cementing of our existing ecosystem relationships, without which none of this would be possible.

We will also be completing our first BUILD programme with Sibanye-Stillwater iXS.
The first year of the BUILD programme was an incredible journey and an invaluable learning curve. We look forward to incubating, developing and scaling the amazing cohort of innovators and innovations that we have been working with and walking further with them on their growth journey. As a team, and ecosystem, we are excited to see what these companies will accomplish in 2023 and the contribution they will make to the entrepreneurship ecosystem as a whole.

And… yes, BUILD Programme 2, is also in the pipeline. We are taking all our learnings from our first BUILD programme, to not only make it even better, but bigger, by expanding it beyond our South African borders.

Savant is the only dedicated hardware tech investor in South Africa. And it’s a role and responsibility we take seriously. Together with the support of our investors and ecosystem, 2023 offers the privilege of expanding this out on an entirely new level.

Inhouse, we recently onboarded three excellent EIRs and two incredible IIRs. We look forward to integrating them into our team and watching them learn and grow from some of South Africa’s top founders and inventors. As we grow as a team, we grow as an ecosystem.

Our closing thoughts on 2022 can be carried forward as our mantra for 2023: May this year ahead be one of unprecedented growth, unity, and value creation for the African VC ecosystem.

 

 

 

 

 

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