Seedstars World begins search for Africa’s best tech entrepreneurs

Prosper

Seedstars is returning to Africa for the fourth edition of its seed stage startup competition, Seedstars World. This time, the competition would hold in 23 cities and would see the best of the best technology entrepreneurs selected for the Global Summit.

The last edition, 2016 that is, saw the competition take place in 20 African cities with 18 startups emerging winners. They attended Seedstars Africa in Kigali last year and the Global Summit few weeks back.

Unlike the 2013 and 2015 edition where an African startup emerged overall winner, luck wasn’t on the side of the Africans this time around despite having two women entrepreneurs in the top 12 at the Global Summit.

In this latest edition, the Seedstars team will travel to over 23 African cities in search of the best seed stage entrepreneurs. Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia will host a competition for the first time.

In each country [1], selected entrepreneurs will benefit from local mentorship and exposure. The winning startups will represent their countries at the Regional Summit in Africa and then at the Seedstars Global Summit in Switzerland.

There, they’ll compete with startups from all over the world for up to US$500,000 in equity investment and additional multiple prizes and perks.

“We have been absolutely humbled by the talent we witnessed being showcased on the continent. Our tremendous growth has been fueled by our amazing local Seedstars Ambassadors, our partners and many others who truly see the value in collaborating with these startups,” said Claudia Makadristo, Regional Manager for Africa at Seedstars World.

She added, “While we are, at the core, an investment company, our focus this year is not only to support the winner of each local event, but support more entrepreneurs in the ecosystem financially, through skills development and working on strategic relationships between the entrepreneurs and our partners. Our different initiatives such as Seedspace, the growth program, the Seedstars Academy and the seedstars world competition amongst others, is the foundation for making that happen.”

From 25 April 2017, applications for the competition will open. Johannesburg, South Africa will be the first city to host the competition on 26 May 2017.

Startups applying for the contest must be less than 2 years old, have raised less than US$500,000 in funding and have built a minimum viable product, ideally with existing traction, and have potential to scale regionally and globally.

[1] The countries are South Africa, Mozambique , Democratic Republic of Congo , Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, Cameroon, Rwanda, Angola, Zambia, Mauritius, Madagascar, Botswana, Zimbabwe and others.