Beschreibung der Beschaffung
GIZ implements the project "Scaling digital agriculture innovations through start-ups" (SAIS) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The purpose of SAIS is to increase the investor readiness of selected African start-ups in the food- and agTech sector that are about to scale. For this purpose, the project provides tailor-made company development measures (e. g. improving business models, product development, financial management) through an Investment Readiness Programme (IRP) and facilitates access to investment opportunities.
Tasks to be performed by contractors
The contractor is responsible for hosting a network of mentors and experts on an online platform in close dialogue and under the oversight of SAIS for two successive cohorts of start-ups, namely the ones starting in 2023 and 2024. There is an opportunity to extend this support for two additional cohorts of start-ups to 2025 and 2026 and to broaden the support to more start-ups and to another focus. This includes the following main tasks: ?
1. Contracting and managing of a community and acceleration online platform:?
The bidder will manage an already contracted IT solution for the hosting of the Mentor and Expert Network (MEN) in the first year and will contract and manage it or another similar alternative in the second year of this contract (and additional years, if option is applied). The online platform is the main instrument for managing the community of SAIS, which includes start-up founders and their leadership teams, SAIS team members, experts and mentors as well as other potential partners. The platform serves as a connector between the different actors. Experts and mentors describe their expertise here, founders review their profiles and reach out to them. Moreover, the platform is used to document the agreed company development measures and track progress. In addition, start-ups can also rate the services of the experts and mentors.
The bidder is responsible for closing agreements with the experts. Therefore, he may but is not obliged to make use of the experts already listed on the platform. Furthermore, the bidder will add new experts to the network.
2. Sourcing, contracting and payment of (short-term) experts and mentors
Sourcing in this context means, that the contractor identifies relevant experts and mentors based on the needs of the start-ups as documented in the development plans. There is already an existing pool of experts and mentors the bidder can make use of, but he will also source new experts on a needs basis every time there is a demand for an expertise which cannot be covered by the current experts or where the bidder choses to source a new expert.
Contracting entails the closing of a legal agreement with each expert which includes a standard daily rate and a free orientation call.
Mentors on the platform agree to offer their services without a monetary compensation.
Payment therefore only applies to (short-term) experts once they have delivered the agreed work packages under the condition that the start-ups confirm that they have done so. Work progress should be tracked on the virtual platform used. The contractor is responsible for the payment of the experts according to the respective agreement and number of hours they have worked.?
3. Coordination and the provision of additional business development services ("ASP") and equipment
The contractor is expected to contract additional external service providers for identified growth areas of the individual start-ups (for instance for legal advice, marketing, product refinement, financial management, cash flow optimization, or developer or coding capacities). These tasks will have to be sourced out to third parties. In addition, the contractor will buy equipment for the start-ups.
4. Community management for all the registered members on the platform
The contractor will professionally and proactively manage the community for all members on the platform which means catering to the needs of the different user groups (i. e. start-up founders, leadership team, SAIS team, expert, mentors and other partners). This includes but is not limited to moderating discussions, answering to questions or requests of members, connecting members based on common interests or specific needs, doing regular calls among user groups for peer exchange, and so on.