Seedstars World, the largest emerging start-up start-up competition for emerging markets, will hold its 7th edition on the continent. This year, Seedstars will host bootcamps and pitch competitions in more than 26 countries in Africa and will travel to Sierra Leone and Cape Verde for the first time.
This year, Seedstars World has made significant changes to the format of the competition and will be organizing a number of side activities:
- Bootcamps: In each country, before the pitching event, Seedstars will organize a local bootcamp inviting up to 30 pre-selected startups to participate.
- More women: Seedstars Africa will strive to achieve parity at all levels by inviting more women mentors, jurors, speakers and increasing the number of women-led startups.
- Workshops for local investors: in partnership with EBAN, Seedstars will organize a series of workshops specifically for local investors.
- More price: In 2019, Seedstars aims to work with more local entrepreneurs. As a result, Seedstars will provide access to its Investment Readiness Program, a personalized, data-driven acceleration program that will connect entrepreneurs with international experts and mentors, emerging market-specific training based on best practices. and access to the global network of Seedstars investors. Seedstars will offer at least one month of free access to the top 10 invited startups to present their project locally.
- The Seedstars Africa Ventures investment fund, with a capital of 100 million US dollars, will be operational at the end of this year, which will allow all the candidates to be eligible for a starting investment. In addition, this fund will also address startup promotions from previous years.
“Over the past six years, we have had the opportunity to learn best practices in sustainable business creation in more than 88 emerging markets and more than 25 African countries. This is our foundation and the guarantee that Seedstars will continue to create value for its key stakeholders, namely, entrepreneurs. And this year, thanks to a combination of offers such as the Investment Readiness Program, we are able to support more startups beyond the competition. In addition, with the launch of the $ 100 million fund, it will become even more important to ensure that we meet the right entrepreneurs and the competition serves as a tool to discover the most promising entrepreneurs we can potentially invest in. “Says Claudia Makadristo, Regional Manager for Africa at Seedstars.
Companies invited to the in-camera training and pitching session during the Seedstars World event will have to meet several criteria: to raise less than 500K USD in investments and to have a minimum viable product, ideally with existing traction. The Seedstars team is also looking for an additional element: regional and global growth potential.
In addition to representing their country at the Seedstars Africa Summit, the winner will have the opportunity to fly to Switzerland, to participate in the Seedstars Summit to potentially obtain the title of Seedstars Global Winner and win up to 500 000 USD in investment and other prices.
Registrations are open for different cities and startups are invited to apply: https://www.seedstarsworld.com/competition/. After a careful selection, the Seedstars team draws up a list of ten of the best startups by city to participate in training and pitching behind closed doors with investors.
Africa has previously been represented at the Global Summit by Cowtribe, the first last-mile animal vaccine distribution platform in Africa. Founded in 2016, they provide safe vaccines for hard-to-reach farmers. Other participants include Benefactors, a factoring company offering unsecured financing products, for increased resilience of SMEs, growth and job creation; Bluewave Insurance, which creates consumer-friendly, innovative microinsurance products accessible via mobile; and many other companies providing unprecedented solutions across the continent.
Over the years, Seedstars World has benefited from the support of many organizations, such as Merck, Google, Microsoft 4Afrika, Standard Bank, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and many others.
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