Call for Applications: SAIS Investment Readiness Programme 2026 for African Tech Start-ups in Agriculture, Food and Climate

Ednah Carrick September 12, 2025

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Closing Date: 28 September 2025

Call for Applications: SAIS Investment Readiness Programme 2026 for African Tech Start-ups in Agriculture, Food and Climate

Are you an African start-up transforming agriculture with technology or tech-enabled innovation? Are you ready to scale your impact and attract investment?

The SAIS Investment Readiness Programme is a free, year-long, tailor-made support programme for African tech start-ups creating impact in the agricultural sector whether directly or through areas like climate, livestock, energy, biotech, fintech, circular economy, logistics, or other agri-adjacent sectors.

The programme helps you get investor-ready and grow through customised advisory, targeted technical support, and access to a vibrant community of founders, experts, and investors.

Overview

Organizer	SAIS
Website	Visit website
Targets	Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, French Southern Territories, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Northern Africa, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Sectors	Agribusiness, Agritech, Food production

What SAIS offer

A one-year, fully funded, tailor-made support programme including:

Up to €20,000 in technical assistance budget for consultancies, expert support, legal advice, online marketing, licenses, certifications, ESG governance, product optimisation, market entry strategies, customer acquisition & sales campaigns, marketing & PR, graphic design, employee training, and more.
Access to revolving working capital loans of up to €50,000 with 9-month maturity at 1.5% interest.
Up to €10,000 in digital agency advisory from an international IT consultancy firm to strengthen your digital capacities, marketing skills and data analytics.
Fully sponsored trips to two in-person community events back-to-back with the Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi (February of each year), and one additional sector conference.
Investment and partnership facilitation through invite-only pitch sessions with a curated network of investors, bespoke introductions to investors & funds, guidance on fundraising strategy and due diligence.
A community of 100+ portfolio companies.

What SAIS look for

Applicant companies will be evaluated against business model, technology, team, impact and traction. Special consideration is given to companies with local founders and gender-diverse founding teams. To be eligible for the programme, your company should demonstrate the following:

How the programme works

SAIS is not a bootcamp, do not take equity, and do not force you to attend generic workshops. Here’s what SAIS do instead: SAIS will assign your start-up a dedicated advisor from its team to work with you one-on-one through virtual check-ins and develop a custom roadmap tailored to your needs. Together with your advisor, you will identify your pressing pain points and deploy the programme services accordingly.

If selected, start-ups should be committed to:

Nominate a management team member who dedicates an average of two hours per week to the programme and who serves as a focal point for SAIS for the duration of the programme.
Nominate and dispatch one employee for at least two in-person community events (Feb. 2026 and Feb 2027, most likely in Nairobi).
Provide data on the company’s progress and growth from the start of the programme until at least one year after the end of the programme, including but not limited to data on: revenue, number of users, customers, funds raised and number of employees (Note that this data will only be collected to track the progress of each start-up in compliance with data protection requirements).
Facilitate access to customers or clients for an impact evaluation of your product/service/technology through surveys.
Collaborate with contracted experts and service providers to implement targeted technical support measures (this may include sharing relevant business data and documents to support needs assessments).

About SAIS

The SAIS Investment Readiness Programme 2026 is offered by ‘Scaling Agriculture Innovations through Start-ups (SAIS)’, a project implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and co-funded by the Gates Foundation.