Tech Startups in Sub-Saharan Africa can now Apply for the 2018 Seedstars World Competition

Seedstars World has opened applications to tech startups in Sub-Saharan Africa for its 2018 edition.  Application for this year’s edition was opened today.

Customarily, Seedstars World runs 80+ local competitions where it identifies the best seed-stage startups. In addition to having the top startups pitching, the events are filled with disruptive tech, inspirational discussions, networking sessions and one flight ticket for the winner to come to the Seedstars Summit.

Seedstars World also manages 5 Regional Summits, where it bring all local Seedstars World winners of each region, as well as speakers, investors, corporates, incubators, accelerators, governments and relevant stakeholders to one city to build bridges between regional ecosystems and discuss regional challenges.

The  competition’s final happens in the Seedstars Summit in Switzerland, an exciting event filled with breakout sessions, panel discussions, specialized workshops and the best minds from emerging markets, where the local winners compete to be crowned the Seedstars World Global Winner with the opportunity to win up to $1-million in equity investments and additional prizes.

According to Ventureburn, Seedstars has held two pitching events in Africa, both earlier this month. In Egypt on-demand home nursing service 7kemma came out tops, while in Tunis, Tunisia logistics services marketplace Optimalogistic was crowned the winner.

In a press release today, Seedstars said it plans to visit 20 or more cities across Sub-Saharan Africa, hosting bootcamps and pitch competitions. Countries such as Mauritius and Zambia, among others, will host local competitions for the first time, enlarging the impact of Seedstars mission in the continent.

Seedstars has so far held five editions of its competition and African startups have had significant successes with 3 of its entrepreneurs having won the global prize in the past: SimplePay (Nigeria: 2013), Giraffe (South Africa: 2015) and Agrocenta (Ghana: 2018).

To stand a chance to take part in each pitching event, startups must be less than two years old, have raised less than $500,000 in funding and have built a minimum viable product, ideally with existing traction.

The Seedstars World team is searching for one additional criterion – the startup’s regional and global scalability.

Applications are open here for startups in South Africa, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo , Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, Cameroon, Rwanda, Angola, Zambia, Mauritius, Botswana and Zimbabwe, among others.

The pitching events in Africa confirmed by Seedstars so far are:

Casablanca — 22 June (*now postponed to 6 July)
Algiers — 28 June
Harare — 29 June
Abidjan — 29 June
Kigali — 18 July
Nairobi — 10 August
Lagos — 17 August
Kampala — 24 August
Dakar — 7 September
Gaborone — 14 September
Dar es Salaam — 21 September
Kinshasa — 21 September
Maputo — 28 September
Doula — 28 September
Luanda — 12 October
Bamako — 20 October
Accra — 26 October
South African finals — 2 November
Addis Ababa – 30 November

Startups from Sub-Saharan Africa an apply here.