Startupbootcamp Africa has narrowed down the list of the over 1000 applications it received for its upcoming Startupbootcamp Cape Town accelerator to 130 applications. The accelerator programme will kick off in August. SBC Africa will select 10 startups for the programme — which will be announced on 13 July.
SBC Africa chief investment officer Zachariah George said startups from 77 countries across the world had applied to join the three-month-long accelerator programme, with 87% of them from Africa.
“We saw a big increase in the quality of applications and also in the diversity of technological problems being solved, including fintech, insurtech, AI, Big Data, blockchain solutions, and companies with significantly more traction than what we saw last year,” George said in a statement.
Of the top 130 applications that SBC Africa received, West African startups account for 34% and are closely followed by East African and Southern African startups at 27% and 26% respectively.
The majority of the startups in the top 130 deal with or are developing solutions to tackle issues around finance, at just over 15%, followed by about seven per cent who are in mobile and about six per cent who develop mobile solutions. Of the total number of applicants (1004), just 12% were founded by women.
SBC Africa also revealed that this year’s applicants have “progressed further along the development, launch and rollout stage” and are showing more traction compared to last year’s candidates.
Of the applicants, 30% are already generating revenues, 13% are at the “customer non-revenue stage”, and 14% are in the alpha and beta stages. The remaining 43% are still in the idea or early prototype stage, SBC Africa said.
The SBC Africa team is currently working to select the top 20 applicants ahead of its final selections days which will take place on 11 and 12 July in Cape Town.
