Two African startups namely South Africa’s Libryo and Ghana’s Farmerline are among the 30 startups that have been selected to feature in the Switzerland-based multi-corporate, zero-equity Kickstart Accelerator.
Libryo enables any person working in any organisation to understand their legal obligations in any situation. While Farmerline connects small-scale farmers in Africa to information services, products and resources to improve their incomes.
More than 1,500 startups applied to be part of the second cohort of the Kickstart Accelerator, which is an initiative of digital switzerland and operated by Impact Hub Zurich.
A total of 30 startups have been selected to take part in the 11-week programme later this year (from 4 September to 17 November 2017), across four fields – fintech, food, smart cities and robotics, and intelligent systems. This came after 60 startups were shortlisted to take part in a two-day selection Bootcamp in Zurich.
The programme manager at the Kickstart Accelerator, Patricia Schlenter, said “It’s great to see applications from so many countries, wanting to build, challenge and scale their businesses here in the Swiss innovation ecosystem. What I am particularly excited about is that 13 out of 30 startups at the Kickstart Accelerator have at least one woman as a founder.”
