E-logistics solutions Pargo and WumDrop, as well as online crew booking and diary service Crew Pencil, were named winners of the Cape Town pre-selection round of Seedstars World on Friday, May 27, and will now advance to the South African grand final in Johannesburg on June 30.
Seedstars World is this year holding South African pre-selection events in Cape Town, Durban and Soweto ahead of the national final, with the overall winner of the local events heading to Geneva to pitch for up to US$1 million in funding at the final.
The Cape Town event took place at Workshop17, with 10 selected startups pitching their ideas in front of a jury panel.
The top three startups from Cape Town, which will now advance to the grand final, are Pargo, a logistics solution that allows customers to collect and return their parcels at a local store when it suits them best, Crew Pencil, an online crew booking and diary service for the film industry, and WumDrop, another logistics platform that allows people to pick up and drop off anything with the click of a button.
“It’s great to win with so many other amazing startup entries. It is also great to see so many people that came to watch, including a lot of people from the industry. Just last night I spoke to so many interesting and relevant people which is eventually the main reason to enter and join,” said Lars Veul, co-founder of Pargo.
Seedstars World’s next stop is Durban, where they will organise a pre-selection event at Mancosa to select the best startups in the city.
South African mobile recruitment platform Giraffe was named the overall winner of last year’s competition, taking home US$500,000 in investment, while Seedstars recently scaled its academy to Cape Town after a successful launch in Lagos.
“We have big plans for South Africa, and seeing the quality of the startups today reassured us that we have made the right decision in launching our other project, Seedspace,” said Michael Weber, founding partner of Seedstars World.
