TechCrunch and sponsor Facebook will bring the Startup Battlefield competition to Africa for the first time this year, offering startups the chance to win US$25,000 in non-equity funding.
The TechCrunch Battlefield Africa 2017, for which applications are open here until July 17, will take place in Nairobi, Kenya, on October 11, with the organisers looking for Sub-Saharan Africa’s best innovators, makers and technical entrepreneurs to participate.
African startups are invited to apply to three categories: social good, productivity and utility, and gaming and entertainment. The event in Nairobi will be held in front of a live audience.
Judges will choose a winner in each category as well as an overall winner, wit these startups taking home US$25,000 USD in non-equity funding plus the chance to compete in the Battlefield at Disrupt San Francisco next year.
“Sub-Saharan African startups are helping unleash the region’s potential, from last-mile technologies that deliver edtech, agritech, and medtech to remote areas, to mobile-based fintech innovations that ease financial transactions and lending in bustling cities,” TechCrunch said in a blog post.
“Sub-Saharan African startups, for example, have proven themselves particularly skilled at innovating with low-cost mobile applications, rather than capital-intensive, high-broadband web applications. That makes sense in a region where access to a mobile phone is often more likely than access to clean water or electricity. Innovations that can scale to fingertips globally are fueling human possibility and expansion to global markets.”
Five startups will be picked to compete in each category, with qualifying companies required to be in the launch stage, with a fully working product, have received limited press or publicity, and to have no known intellectual property conflicts.
