Three Egyptian startups have been crowned winners of the third edition of the Innoventures Startup Reactor incubator, taking home EUR10,000 (US$10,620) in cash prizes.
Disrupt Africa reported earlier this month 10 startups had progressed through the accelerator – narrowed down from the initial 25 who started the programme -, and were preparing to pitch at the dual culminating demo days where the top three startups would be crowned winners.
The official demo day – “Startup Nova – Entrepreneurship Explosion – took place in Cairo last week, with startups given four minutes each to a panel of judges comprising investors and industry experts.
First place went to ZeroWaste Technologies, for their project, CanBank, that encourages people to recycle cans in exchange for phone credit. The innovation received EUR5,000 (US$5,310).
The second prize of EUR3,000 (US$3,186) went to Tripdizer, an app that helps travellers organise their trip.
In third place was Perligos, an online gate that allows customers to solve their complaints by connecting them to the right people in the business.
“There are too many problems in Egypt that would make you not willing to wake up, but for you as startups, every problem is a new project that you can work on and find a scientific solution to it,” Innoventures managing director for Egypt, Wael Fakharany, told the startups.