The GIZ-SAIS Investment Readiness Programme 2026 for African Agtech Start-ups. – Opportunities For Africans

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Application Deadline: 28 September 2025 

Applications at the moment are open for the 2026 GIZ-SAIS Investment Readiness Programme. The SAIS Investment Readiness Programme is a free, year-long, tailored assist programme for African start-ups creating impression within the agricultural sector … whether or not immediately or by areas like 🌱local weather, 🐄livestock, ⚡power, 🧬biotech, 💰fintech, ♻️round economic system, 🚚logistics, or different agri-adjacent sectors.

The programme helps you get investor-ready and develop by customised advisory, focused technical assist, and entry to a vibrant group of founders, specialists, and buyers.

Requirements

Applicant corporations will probably be evaluated in opposition to enterprise mannequin, expertise, staff, impression and traction. Special consideration is given to corporations with native founders and gender-diverse founding groups. To be eligible for the programme, your organization ought to reveal the next:

Geography and Legal-Entity
Be for-profit and registered in Africa (all international locations besides South Africa*)

Team
Have a administration staff of no less than two folks

Stage
Be pre-seed by Series A

Traction
Have a minimal viable product and proof of income, and paying clients.

Impact Alignment
Be AgriFoodTech or agricultural-adjacent with a direct/oblique impression or relevance for the agricultural sector or stakeholders

Benefits

A one-year, absolutely funded, tailored assist programme together with:

• Up to €20,000 in technical help price range for consultancies, knowledgeable assist, authorized recommendation, on-line advertising, licenses, certifications, ESG governance, product optimisation, market entry methods, buyer acquisition & gross sales campaigns, advertising & PR, graphic design, worker coaching, and extra.
• Access to revolving working capital loans of as much as €50,000 with 9-month maturity at 1.5% curiosity.
• Up to €10,000 in digital company advisory from a world IT consultancy agency to strengthen your digital capacities, advertising abilities and knowledge analytics.
• Fully sponsored journeys to two in-person group occasions back-to-back with the Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi (February of every yr), and one further sector convention.
• Investment and partnership facilitation by invite-only pitch classes with a curated community of buyers, bespoke introductions to buyers & funds, steerage on fundraising technique and due diligence.
• A group of 100+ portfolio companies.

Programme Details

If chosen, start-ups needs to be dedicated to: 

• Nominate a administration staff member who dedicates a mean of two hours per week to the programme and who serves as a focus for SAIS for the period of the programme. 
• Nominate and dispatch one worker for no less than two in-person group occasions (Feb. 2026 and Feb 2027, most probably in Nairobi). 
• Provide knowledge on the corporate’s progress and development from the beginning of the programme till no less than one yr after the top of the programme, together with however not restricted to knowledge on: income, variety of customers, clients, funds raised and variety of staff (Note that this knowledge will solely be collected to trace the progress of every start-up in compliance with knowledge safety necessities). 
• Facilitate entry to clients or purchasers for an impression analysis of your product/service/expertise by surveys. 
• Collaborate with contracted specialists and repair suppliers to implement focused technical assist measures (this may occasionally embrace sharing related enterprise knowledge and paperwork to assist wants assessments). 

Programme Timeline:

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the GIZ-SAIS Investment Readiness Programme