African Leadership Network (ALN) Ventures is calling for applications from individuals that wish to sit on the board of one of its portfolio companies, with potential board members needed to offer assistance to the African startups as they grow.
Disrupt Africa reported in January ALN Ventures had picked the startups for its inaugural nine-month accelerator programme, which began in South Africa in February and is still ongoing, offering eight startups US$20,000 each in funding as well as advice from sector-specific experts.
The accelerator has now issued a call for those interested in joining the boards of any of these eight startups, seeking individuals with an MBA and two years experience with one hour to spend per month in assisting the startups.
ALN said prospective board members should be passionate about African startup growth and be able to provide sector and functional insights to the founder through a monthly call, together with other board members, “delivering measurable business impact”.
Interested parties should send their CV alongside the name of the companies they are interested in to ALN Ventures’ James Loss-Wells.
The startups with available seats on their boards available include Uganda’s Banapads, which produces inexpensive sanitary napkins, Cameroon’s GiftedMom, an SMS-based maternal health management solution for hospitals, and Learning Horizon from Nigeria, a provider of e-learning solutions to corporates and institutions of higher learning.
The others are Madlyn Cazalis from Cameroon, the first producer of locally-made, all-natural cosmetics in the country, Nigeria’s Medical Devices as a Service, which leases medical equipment to hospitals, Tanzania’s Nikweli, a mobile-to-web job-matching platform, Kenya’s Stawi Foods, which produces gluten-free banana flour, and American startup Tastemakers, a mobile and web-based travel platform.
Disrupt Africa reported last month ALN Ventures had entered into a strategic alliance with Microsoft’s 4Afrika initiative in order to support entrepreneurs and startups across the continent.
