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OUR MATERIAL MATTERS
| GOVERNANCE, RISK & REGULATION | NETWORK QUALITY | ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY
| INNOVATION |
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SPARK FUND CONTINUES TO IGNITE LOCAL INNOVATION
As part of our commitment to stimulating innovation within the developer
community, we launched our venture capital fund, ‘Safaricom Spark Fund’ in
2014. The first corporate venture fund in East Africa targeted at local tech startups,
the Safaricom Spark Fund aims to support the successful development and scale-
up of high-potential, ‘late seed’ to ‘early growth’ stage, ICT start-ups in Kenya,
through investment and in-kind support. The fund seeks to invest between KSh 6
and 22 million per start-up, for a minority stake in portfolio companies. In addition
to the funding, Safaricom provides in-kind support, such as mentorship, technical
assistance and access to Safaricom services such as SMS, SSD, cloud hosting and
marketing opportunities.
During the period under review, the Spark Fund invested in the following start-
ups: mSurvey (mobile phone-based market research); eneza education (virtual
courses, assessments and live support over the internet and USSD/SMS); LYNK
(marketplace for informal workers and customers); and FarmDrive (alternative
credit scoring for small holding farmers).
BLAZE
Launched in May 2016, BLAZE is a network aimed exclusively at addressing the
needs of the youth segment. By joining the BLAZE network, customers aged
between 10 and 26 years old can access a variety of exclusive benefits and
services, including the opportunity to attend the ‘Be Your Own Boss’ (BYOB)
mentorship summits, shop with BLAZE Bonga, customise their own personal service
plans and buy more affordable bundles with the ‘Create Your Plan’ application,
and the possibility of participating in the BYOB TV show.
The BLAZE network has already proved to be a big success and has 1.6 million
users, with youth segment customers growing by 33% or 0.9 million and revenues
increasing from KES 1.4 to 1.8 billion per month. Our youth segment NPS has also
increased by 14 points since the launch of the network. Over 50,000 customers
have attended the six BYOB mentorship summits that have been held since the
launch and the BYOB TV Show enjoys an average of 500,000 viewers per week.
Screenshots from the BLAZE application. Customers can decide the volume of each different
service (data, voice calls and SMS) they want to buy using the sliders.
SDG 9
SDG 17
SDG 8