As Seedstars Academy officially kickstarts operations with selected startups in Lagos, application is set to open today (Monday) for the second cohort of the program. This was revealed by Benjamin Benaim, Founding Partner, Seedstars, during last week’s edition of Innovation Village Chat Series.
“For now we will be looking at 5 startups per cohort, gradually it would increase to 10 and 20 startups. We will be opening applications this week for batch two that will start on June 1. So far, the experience has been very positive and we will be running a lot of programs in parallel,” Benjamin said.
According to him, Seedstars is a venture builder and can help companies to avoid making mistakes.
“We define ourselves more as a venture builder. We are typically a company ourselves and this boils down to culture and talents. We believe that we can avoid 90% of the mistakes. We believe that by connecting the right ideas with the right talents, in addition to access to capital, you have a lot more chance to reach success. Corporates must have clear cut commitment to innovation,” he said.
The Seedstar Academy officially starts today Monday April 18, 2016. The application for new batch is also opening today.
“We hope to be able to create some success and to develop and to impact positively in the ecosystem by helping to solve several issues including energy, financing, SMEs and other major issues,” Benaim said.
