In war-torn Sudan, a displaced startup incubator returns to fuel innovation

Companies need stability to grow. Unfortunately for everyone in Sudan, stability has been difficult to achieve over the past year and a half as the country reels from a raging civil war. More than 20,000 people died and approximately 7.7 million were displaced within the country alone; millions had to flee across international borders as refugees.

But you can still find safe places. And in the relatively safer provinces of Port Sudan and Kassala in the eastern part of the country, one startup incubator resumed operations after a six-month forced break when war broke out in April last year.

“On Saturday, when the war broke out, we had employees in the office, and after three days the RSF militia knocked on the door and said, ‘You have to leave, and if you don’t leave, you will be bullets in the air,’” Yousif Yahya, founder of Savannah Innovation Labs, told TechCrunch.

Shortly after the warning, the conflict escalated, and as the shooting became louder and more frequent, basic utilities such as water and electricity were cut off. For Yahya, his family and many others, fleeing to neighboring Egypt, a 12-hour journey of some 550 miles, became a necessity for survival.

Building during war

Asylum is never a good thing, but for Yahya, the respite and safety allowed him to continue with his plans to found and run a startup incubator in Sudan. Operating from Cairo – the capital of Egypt and one of the largest startup hubs in Africa – Savannah was able to set up operations in the eastern region of Sudan, which was relatively safer.

The first edition of the “We-Rise” bootcamp in Savannah, financed by the European Union and the Italian Development Cooperation Agency, aimed to support entrepreneurship. The program included entrepreneurs who were building a company or just had ideas, and gave them a starting point – over 300 companies took part in it for a year. The 100 finalists in the bootcamp pitch competition will receive funding ranging from €2,500 ($2,783) to €7,500 ($8,313).

Before the war, the program was intended to provide equity financing to finalists, but Yahya explained that grants made it easier for them to continue the program.

“The main idea was that we should continue working,” he said. “First of all, because there are still young people in the country who want to move on, build companies, learn and so on. They have no means to leave the country. Second, if and when the war ends, we don’t want to go back to ground zero (and start) explaining to people what term sheets are, what equity is, and what forming a company should look like.

“War is chaotic. War is ugly. But at the same time, we now have a clean slate,” he added.

In pursuit of talent

Savannah has now reached beyond Sudan’s borders to establish networks in neighboring Uganda, Kenya and Egypt, with the goal of bringing together scattered members of the Sudanese startup community. The goal is to resume building what Yahya set out to do in 2018: create a talent pool that will drive the country’s technological transformation.

The concept of Savannah came about while Yahya was studying international relations at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. After establishing an incubator in Sudan, the incubator began helping university students gain experience working with technology companies so they could get a taste of how startups work.

Yahya maintains that talent precedes the investment needed to transform a country.

“The whole idea is that you develop the talent pool that is needed… to be able to continue and start your own companies. I never tell people it’s an overnight success story or anything like that. But the seeds that are sown now will take some time to be visible,” he said.

Today, Savannah has enabled thousands of people to enter the startup ecosystem in Sudan. He has also supported a number of start-ups, including Bloom (now Elevate), the first YC-backed start-up in Sudan.

I’m not saying no to risk

Yahya, who is also a partner at venture firm Africa Renaissance Partners, says he wants to fill capital gaps in untapped markets such as Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, and especially in markets considered risky due to conflict, such as Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The DRC, a country devastated by armed conflict, is still among the top emerging startup markets.

“If you need markets of scale, you need to look at places like Sudan, Central African Republic, DRC. Even though these places are war-torn, the work currently taking place on the ground will reframe what new economies will look like,” he said.

“We don’t wait for something to stop so we can continue building what we want. No one will come and do this work for us. … A lot of people talk about war, famine and all these ugly things that are happening that rightfully need to be talked about. But on the other hand, we need to start talking about what the next day will look like. What values ​​do we want? What kind of society must we lead? Which companies will rule the country?”

The startup ecosystem in Sudan is still in its infancy, but several players are working to develop it, such as 249Startups and Impact Hub. The community has recovered somewhat since some sanctions were eased in 2017, and Yahya remains optimistic.

“I’m willing to bet that Sudan will be a very mature VC market after the war because a lot of the big family businesses have been destroyed or burned out a lot of cash,” he said. “Many of these companies and many of the patriarchs who built them no longer have the strength to step back. The new generation will want to enter and will set up funds and advisory firms in the sectors in which their family businesses have historically operated.