Seedstars World, the largest early-stage startup competition for emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes, is coming back to the continent for the 7th time. The Seedstars World Tour will visit 26 Sub Saharan African countries this year and will visit Sierra Leone and Cabo Verde for the first time.
“Over the past six years, we had an opportunity to learn from the best practices in building sustainable businesses in over 88+ emerging markets and 25+ countries in Africa. These learnings are the foundation to ensure that Seedstars continues to create value for its core stakeholders, which are the entrepreneurs. And this year, through a combination of offerings such as the Investment Readiness Program, we are able to support more startups beyond the event.
In addition, with the launch of the 100 million USD fund, it will become even more important to make sure that we meet the right entrepreneurs and the competition serves as a tool to discover the most promising entrepreneurs to potentially invest in.”, says Claudia Makadristo, Regional Manager for Africa at Seedstars.
The companies invited to the training session and to pitch during the Seedstars World events must have raised less than USD 500k in funding and built a minimum viable product, ideally with existing traction. The Seedstars team is searching for one additional criterion: potential for regional and global scalability.
Besides representing their country at the Seedstars Africa Summit, the winner will get a chance to win an all-inclusive trip to Switzerland, to compete at the Seedstars Summit for the title of Seedstars Global Winner and up to USD 500,000 in equity investments and other prizes.
The applications are open for several cities and startups are invited to apply here .After careful screening, the Seedstars team will shortlist up to ten of the best seed-stage startups per city to participate in training and 1:1 meetings with investors.
Africa was previously represented at the Global competition by Cowtribe which is Africa’s first last mile animal vaccine delivery platform. Founded in 2016 they deliver safe vaccines to farmers in hard to reach. Other participants also include Benefactors, a factoring firm offering unsecured working capital products, for increased SME resilience, growth and job creation; Bluewave Insurance which creates an innovative mass market, microinsurance products accessible via mobile devices; and a host of other innovative companies providing incredible solutions across the continent.
